I plan to approach the job hunt after I graduate the same way I would approach a full time job.
Below is my 40 hour a week plan for keeping my skills sharp and actively building professional network:
- 1 hr coding research. Immediately I plan to read Eloquent JavaScript.
- 1 hr coding warm up. Most likely coding challenges like Code Wars or Exercism.
- 3 hrs Project Work. I plan on focusing on setting up a personal site, and getting all projects live on Heroku in the immediate future. After that I want to develop a few web applications built around mapping APIs.
- 2 hrs networking / outreach
- 1 hr job applications
- Adhere to daily goals outlined above to hit 40 hour mark.
- Write at least 1 blog post in effort to boost online presence.
- Meet up with a few people to pair on learning new skills (e.g. Angular, Ember, Electron)
- Have a job before end of month 2 post Turing.
- Build mvp of at least one new project per month.
- At least 2 interviews per month
- Regular work out schedule
- Read more (not Docs)
- Mountains at least twice per week
- See family more
I can definitely see myself falling into the trap of "Why do it today, when I could always do it tomorrow". I know that I can put things off by justifying other tasks. E.g. chores and errands. I need to stay focused and keep myself honest in order to adhere to this schedule I've outlined above. I feel confident that I can, because, one: there is no way in hell my wife will allow me to slack off, and two: I feel confident that myself and other cohort mates want to still meet regularly until we have jobs. This will help to keep the routine going and hopefully the focus as well.
Five years from now in the year TWENTY TWENTY TWO...but seriously, five years from now I will be a senior developer and team lead at an establish geospatial minded company. I will be considered an industry expert in manipulating large datasets into digesible, easily comprehended and elegant data visualiations. Looking forward from this point in my career I will have honed many of my front end engineering skills while also picking up sound backend principles. I will also be interested in learning more about the day to day runnings of company in hopes of launching my own mapping and data visualization firm. I believe the key to keeping the public well informed is make data accessible, and visually interesting and legible images are the best way to accomplish this. This will require an exceptional amount of learning and hard work. I know that I am capable of doing this because I made it through Turing. Turing asks more from an individual in a shorter amount of time than most academic settings. I know this will prepare me to continue to learn and grow at a fast pace. The hard work is only beginning, but I know that I can do it.