How To Learn How To Code While Working Full Time | Launch School Student William Lotherington

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Ian L.:
Okay. Boom. We are recording. Today I have on. He is a current at Launch School in coding bootcamp that... well, I guess it's not really a coding bootcamp. It's a long form educational experience that teaches people to master software engineering. It's the slow path for studious beginners and it's a really, really interesting school that we're going to talk a little bit about today. So I wanted to bring William on because he is completing this learning to code journey while he is a full time employee and has a very full time significant other, he's got a lot of other stuff going on in his life so I wanted to talk to him about how he's balancing learning to code with all of that. So William, thank you for coming on today.
William L.:
Yeah, definitely. Thanks for having me.
Ian L.:
For sure. So you saw the list of questions, we're going to just knock out whatever we can in the little bit of time. But, for the first one for anyone that doesn't really know, can you talk a little bit about what Launch School is and why it's appealed to you for a way to learn coding?
William L.:
Yeah. So there's a million different ways out there that all try to advertise the same thing about like, "I want to learn to code." And everyone seems to be selling that option or having some way to do that. And so Launch School is part of that crazy slew and it's easy to get mixed in but from what I've seen and what I've researched, it's very distinctly different for a few critical reasons and a lot of it, luckily, they actually wrote about. So if you're ever curious, there's an insane amount of stuff you could read on their website which is awesome. But the short and simple is that instead of trying to get people from point A of not knowing anything to point B or Z or C or whatever it is of like you can actually... you have the marketable, professional skillset that you can do things with.
William L.:
Instead of trying to force that into a specific timeline like you go to school for four years and whether you understand 100% or 50%, you're pretty much done after that, instead of doing that they focused on removing the time barrier and making sure you actually understand every step of the way starting with the very fundamental, fundamental things. So that by the time you get to the end of it, you understand not only all the crazy little nuances of the tools and stuff out there that you need to have a very valuable skillset, we also understand why those are the important skills and all the fundamentals that they're built on top of that are underpinning the whole system. So at the end of it, unlike a lot of the different options out there, that kind of crash course, you do a lot of the stuff, some things you pick up really well, some things you kind of a glaze over and a lot of stuff is in the middle.