Yesterday was the first day of my boot camp. Most was an orientation, but there was a little bit of actual work happened. They're very big on our stories and mentioned that we should write it all down to remember the journey. As I said the morning and part of the afternoon was Orientation, which was a bit tedious. But I am someone that went to an information day, as well as a demo day and another students only information day before landing in my first day yesterday. So the orientation was a lot things I had already heard. It would be great to hear as someone who had not done any of those other days.

I will say though the ice breaker was really fun. It mixed us into break out rooms for 5 minute periods where we got to introduce ourselves and chat a bit. it was a mix of virtual and in person people. (In person bootcamps are virtual for the first two weeks because most of that is self learning.) It was a great chance to meet some great people.

I didn't realize how much I was going to struggle with constantly needing to be on camera. It's mandatory for attendance which we also need to meet a requirement of 90% for.

It's also a LOT of listening to people talk on the first day. From the start at 1030am to about 3 or 330pm. There is a break for lunch and if your teacher works it in 5 minute breaks once in awhile. I am grateful for every 5 minute break he adds in. My introvert dies a little every day. But I will say, that is one reason virtual works because those five minutes I can turn off the camera and walk around ignoring everything and it helps me survive the day. In person there is no getting away from people.

People are pretty great though, I will say everyone is really friendly and possibly a little introverted given how many of us resist speaking when the teacher asks someone to volunteer LOL!

The bootcamp community uses Slack as the community hub. There are general channels for all of us as well as class channels. Once you land in a class you are also divided into a pod with a TA. There is no getting through the experience without getting to know people very well. (As an introvert that loves people and getting to know small groups I love that!)

Expectations vs. Reality

This bootcamp is going to challenge me in different ways than I expected. One of the most challenging ways I have found very quickly is trying to make sense of the instructions on assignments. They tend to use a lot of words to explain something they could say in a sentence. Such as "Use a card layout." Could have saved me a couple hours last night. I was relieved to see that many of us are struggling with the way the instructions are written out.

The other challenge I wasn't expecting was working through the Career Accelerator assignments. It's all a great idea in theory. If you're an able bodied individual that has the privilege of a life that has lead you straight from school to the work force. But my life as not worked out that way. So I am struggling with the resume writing and goal setting or even being able to begin to plan out the where I want to be in 1, 5 and 10 years. I don't even know where I will able to afford to live in a year let alone being able to think in five or ten year periods.

Most programs tend to design for the able bodied person who is doing a career transition often little to no thought is given outside of that, and I am not really finding much difference here.

I am grateful however at least that the outcome of all of this will be different than other programs I have gone through.

The wording is also a little better this time around when they try to get you thinking about goals, I give them that. If all goes according to plan, where will you be? It may seem like a little thing but to a disabled person words matter.

I appreciate that they also have a person plan for their lives, personal, career but also their health. I think that's important now more than ever.

I never really thought too much about how uncomfortable I would feel being in a class full of people with amazing education and coming from pretty incredible jobs. I know for the bulk of the first day, I wondered if I belonged here. Thankfully, I have enough experience with that feeling that I am good at pushing through it.

Going Forward

Going in to day two, I am going to be thankful for those 5 minute breaks, and the self working parts of my day when I get to turn the camera off. I am also going to give myself a lot of grace. I'm thankful, I took the early night off of homework last night and got a good nights rest.

Part of the goals I could identify for my homework was my goal to work towards better self care and not absorbing stress like I have in the past. May as well start that now so that when I start a job somewhere I have already got a head start.

Final Thoughts

I love the program and the people. But I would love more for someone to design a program like this with disabled people in mind and make it inclusive including the career accelerator part of the program as well as the bootcamp. Tech should be inclusive and welcoming to everyone. But more than that it should also be affordable and for many it isn't. I'm lucky enough to have the option of racking up the debt to do this but not everyone is (and honestly, I would love to be able to do this without the huge debt!)

I find myself wondering about big questions. How can I work towards making tech more inclusive, approachable, affordable and welcoming for everyone, including disabled, and other under represented groups?