--- title: From Novice to Bootcamp Instructor date: 2021-06-08T05:00:00-04:00 author: Sean Smith canonical_url: "https://website101podcast.com/episodes/season-04/episode-11/from-novice-to-bootcamp-instructor/" section: Podcast --- <!\[CDATA\[YII-BLOCK-BODY-BEGIN\]\]>[Skip to main content](#main-content)![Owen Craig](https://website101podcast.com/uploads/hosts/_200x200_crop_center-center_none/owen-craig.jpg)Guest Owen Craig Owen graduated from Juno College of Technology in 2016 and worked as a Front-End developer at ICF Next for four years before returning to Juno to work as an instructor. In addition to teaching coding, Owen is also a big believer in working on soft skills such as teamwork, communication, and empathy. [ ](https://twitter.com/owenkcraig)[ ](https://www.linkedin.com/in/owen-craig-5b620351/) Season 04 Episode 11 – Jun 08, 2021 46:04 [Show Notes](#show-notes) ## From Novice to Bootcamp Instructor  0:00 0:00 1.0x 0.75x1.0x1.25x1.5x2x [](//dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/website101podcast.com/uploads/mp3/season-04/S04-e11-novice-to-bootcamp-instructor.mp3) Learn all about Owen Craig's journey from novice developer to bootcamp instructor. Why he transitioned from social media manager to development, why Owen chose a bootcamp and how he later became an instructor at that same bootcamp. ### Show Notes - What is a bootcamp - Why a bootcamp vs other paths - Favorite part of web development - Least liked part of web development - How Owen became an instructor at Juno college - How to keep up with changing technology - Advice for a new developer - How to evaluate what to learn - No code developers - Most important skill a developer should have ### Show Links - [Juno College](https://junocollege.com/) - [Udemy](https://www.udemy.com/) - [Code Academy](https://www.codecademy.com/) - [Wes Bos](https://wesbos.com/) - [Juno College (Free Events)](https://junocollege.com/events) - [Andrew Welch](https://nystudio107.com/) - [Jargon Part 1](https://website101podcast.com/episodes/season-02/episode-5/web-jargon-part-one/) - [Jargon Part 2](https://website101podcast.com/episodes/season-02/episode-6/web-jargon-part-two/) Powered Transcript Accuracy of transcript is dependant on AI technology. **\[00:00\]** **Sean:** Hello and welcome to their website 101 podcast. I'm Sean Smith your co-host and with me as always is Mike Mella Mike. How are you doing today? I'm doing well. How are you Sean? I'm doing great spring is here. Yeah. COVID restrictions appear to be loosening up a little bit and we've got an awesome guest. So today, we're going to be talking with Owen Craig and back in 2011 to 2013, myself and Owen worked together in a web agency. I was the lead developer and Owen was the social media manager. And since we both left that agency, Owen has become a web developer through a bootcamp. And then later, rejoin the bootcamp as an instructor. So we're going to talk to him about his journey from social media manager to bootcamp instructor. Oh, and welcome to the show. **\[01:03\]** **Owen:** It's great to be here, Sean. Nice to meet you, Mike. **\[01:05\]** **Sean:** Yeah. You too, man. So, Owen, can you tell us a little bit about your decision to move from social media manager to wanting to do web development because when we work together, I had no idea. No idea that you were considered that. **\[01:22\]** **Owen:** Well, yeah, it's a really interesting story. And it's a fun story because Sean, it's a story that you play a part in. Oh, cool. Yeah, absolutely. So when we worked together, I worked as a social media manager. And I've role sort of grew and grew. And something that ended up happening is one of my responsibilities became making updates to the websites that you built. And they were built with CMSs. And so you would sort of train me how to do some of those updates as much as possible, and it quickly became my favorite part of my job. I loved getting to do a little bit of work on the websites that you built, and in fact, I took great pride in trying to be able to do as much of it myself as possible without your help. I would always try and seek out little ways I could make updates here and there, and it was always just the worst for me to walk over to your desk and say, Sean, I don't know how to do this. And I love that and I hit a point when I thought, well, if working with the websites is my favorite part of my job Why don't I make it my entire job and this sort of decision happened after you'd left and I was I was still working there and Around that time my my partner as well was trying to make a change and she decided she wanted to get into web development and It's very important that I'm I'm clear about this. She did it first before me I followed in her footsteps. **\[02:44\]** **Sean:** In case she's listening. **\[02:46\]** **Owen:** Yes, it's right. **\[02:47\]** **Sean:** Do we need to bring her on to the show? **\[02:48\]** **Owen:** It's right. I have to be very clear about that. I copied her. She didn't copy me. So she went off and she became a web developer. And here I was still really loving the website work I was doing at my job. And I thought, I should do this, too. I should also make this change. And as with any life change, it's very important that I am very confident. So I took an evening web dev course to make sure I liked as much as I thought I would. And when I absolutely loved it, I quit my job, went to the boot camp **\[03:18\]** **Sean:** and haven't looked back. What was that first book or that first evening course that you took? **\[03:24\]** **Owen:** Yeah, so it was also at General College. And it was an evening class, sort of, it was appropriately an episode of like a web dev 101 class. You know, it was intro to web dev. I had had an amazing teacher, her name was Antonis, and it was teaching us all about the basics of HTML and CSS, and I absolutely loved it. I looked forward to the class twice a week, and I think about three or four weeks into this class, I said, okay, this is it. I love this. I need to put in my application for the bootcamp, make this change, and make it my full-time job. **\[04:01\]** **Sean:** Wow. That is an awesome story. It's so awesome when you find that one thing that you want to do with your life. Yeah. And I mean you found it, you followed it and here you are. That is so awesome. **\[04:15\]** **Owen:** It's so great. And something that I vividly remember, because I talked to a lot of people, both of my personal life and my professional life, who are interested in my change and interested in whether or not that change might be right for them. And something I always tell them is at that that old job I had, I didn't feel the wins. If I did a good job, if I made a great post, if I wrote a great press release. I didn't care. It meant nothing to me. Yet, when I pull off the smallest cool thing when I'm doing web dev, I am riding high for weeks. I totally get that on. I still get **\[04:52\]** **Sean:** that feeling. Oh yeah, big time. Yeah, definitely. Myself and Mike and a few other people were in a small Slack group, and then drink COVID, we meet weekly for virtual drinks, and part of the virtual drinks is show and tell. And it's basically the same thing. We're like, I did this cool thing. Yeah. And everybody's like, yeah, way to go. Somebody always brings something **\[05:15\]** **Mike:** that they accomplished that week and it just shows shows off for for each other. It's really **\[05:19\]** **Owen:** fun. I honestly, I think it was now about two years ago that I figured out how to build of my own custom filter system in a WordPress site using their taxonomy terms, and I did it myself without any plugins, and I still talk about it to this day. That's great. **\[05:35\]** **Sean:** That's great. That's awesome. **\[05:38\]** **Mike:** So really awesome. Can we, let's take a bit of a step backward here. What exactly is a bootcamp in terms of web development? You mentioned that's kind of how you get started and obviously you're involved in that now. What is it? What's a bootcamp? **\[05:51\]** **Owen:** Yeah, so that's a great question. And it's something that is absolutely important to dig into, because there are a lot of paths to being a web developer. And I'm not here to tell anyone what path is right or wrong because that's a very personal choice. A bootcamp specifically is built around the concept that not everyone is able to either for time reasons or life reasons or whatever. They're not always able to go back to school for three or four years and get a CS degree. In some cases, that's not possible. I know for me, it wasn't. I made this change when I was 30. It's like, I'm not going back to university. I can't do this. And a bootcamp is built around the concept that we, obviously, it's not going to replicate a CS degree level of experience. That's not going to happen. But what it can do is it can give you the basics you need to enter the field as a junior level developer. It's going to get you where you need so you can get your first job as a web developer. And then your learning continues. as you grow and evolve in the field. So in a bootcamp situation, I'm not going to speak to other bootcamps, but Juno College Technology, it's a nine week program where you go and they train you in HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and React. Oh, wow. Yeah. And that's all done in nine weeks. It's extremely intensive. It's very much like a, hey, put your life on hold for nine weeks thing, which is absolutely the case. I can share some stories about my mental state during the bootcamp, it's meant to be hard. **\[07:22\]** **Sean:** We will want to hear those stories. **\[07:24\]** **Owen:** Oh, they're great stories, they're wonderful. It's just a blast. And then after that 90 program is over, and here's the magic of it, in my opinion, they keep the bootcamp going out of the tech portion and into the job hunt portion. And you are supported in finding your first job in the industry. There's a dedicated team that helps you work on your resume, your interview skills, your tech challenge skills. And they are basically going to be with you until you get that first job. **\[07:53\]** **Sean:** I made this change when I was 30. It's like, I'm not going back to university. I can't do this. And a bootcamp is built around the concept that we, obviously, it's not going to replicate a CS degree level of experience. That's not going to happen. But what it can do is it can give you the basics you need to enter the field as a junior level developer. It's going to get you where you need so you can get your first job as a web developer. And then your learning continues as you grow and evolve in the field. So in a bootcamp situation, I'm not going to speak to other bootcamps, but Juno College Technology, it's a nine week program where you go and they train you in HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and React. Oh, wow. Yeah. And that's all done in nine weeks. It's extremely intensive. **\[08:45\]** **Owen:** Yeah, the bootcamp is there's no life during a bootcamp. I treasure the memory of during the bootcamp. Get this. I watched one movie during those nine weeks. And it was such a wonderful day when I watched that movie. I had a great time. **\[08:59\]** **Mike:** It was a Thursday. **\[09:00\]** **Owen:** Yeah. It was so long. **\[09:02\]** **Sean:** If you know anything about Owen, he loves movies. Half of his tweets are about movies. So if you only watched one movie in nine weeks, **\[09:10\]** **Owen:** oh yeah, that's a big deal. Nice. It was delightful. at a great time that day. **\[09:15\]** **Mike:** Okay. So it sounds like you're, I mean, you're obviously remembering the initial bootcamp fondly, even though we're kind of joking about the intensity. There's a lot of options online now, courses you can take through Udemy, Code Academy, things **\[09:30\]** **Owen:** like that. **\[09:31\]** **Mike:** Is there any reason you decided to go for the bootcamp route rather than sort of just signing up for one of these kind of online courses? **\[09:38\]** **Owen:** Absolutely. **\[09:39\]** **Sean:** And this is like, we realize this is a personal answer. It would be different for everybody, but really curious like your thought process. **\[09:46\]** **Owen:** Yeah, 100%. Yeah, and I can't stress enough. I don't want to tell anyone you have to this way or that way. As you said, John, this is my answer. For me, it's about structure, accountability, and support. I know me as a person, as a learner. If I tell myself, I'm going to do it myself. I'm not going to do it. It's not going to happen. Yeah. So if I leave it all to me, there's just no way. It's something will come up. Everyone is like, oh, I was going to study tonight, but then this happened. Oh, no. I ended up having this responsibility. But if I have a class to go to, if I have a physical place to be or an online place to be in the case of a Zoom class, I'll be there. If I say I'm going to do something that has a personal accountability to an instructor, I'm going to do it. So having that requirement is really important to me. Having that accountability is really important to me. I know a lot of people have been able to do it on their own, and that's super cool. In fact, one of my instructors at the book camp, his name's Ryan Christiani, amazing person. He learned web development by going to, I think it was like an indigo every day on his lunch break and reading a book there. That's incredible. **\[10:57\]** **Sean:** Wow. What a phenomenal human being. So he didn't buy the book. No, he basically used the bookstore as a **\[11:03\]** **Mike:** library yeah to be fair a lot of people do that that's why they have a coffee shop in the end **\[11:08\]** **Sean:** yeah right that is that is awesome that is my understanding of it I apologize to him if I got **\[11:14\]** **Owen:** that rolling um but yeah so like he was able to do that more power to him and he was an amazing instructor that rules uh for me I wouldn't be able to do that I just like if I if I don't have somewhere to go and be and be present it's not gonna happen so for me an actual in-person learning environment was very, very important. I've continued some of that training with Zoom classes online during the pandemic and that's sort of been able to replicate that for me. I took a wordpress and Shopify class and I took a full stack class online during the pandemic. That was great. But yeah, I need that accountability and I need that support because sometimes you hit those walls where you're just like, I don't understand what's happening and stack overflow is full of extremely snarky answers. I need that person who's going to come to me and actually say, here's what's happening, here's what's going on. And so when I would have my instructors, I'll show it around Christianity again, as well as Drew Minnes and Kristen Spencer, who are all amazing people, to have them there with me, **\[12:15\]** **Sean:** really made all the difference. That is so true that community and DLT know somebody who can actually really help you out. Both myself and Mike are self-taught. But yeah, that's awesome. Speaking for myself, I got a lot of help from online community. So yeah, I think that's the same kind of scaffolding that you got with the bootcamp. Yeah. So for you, the bootcamp was more about having accountability, not necessarily about what was in the program. **\[12:49\]** **Owen:** I would say their programs are extremely extremely tight at the time I took it keeping in mind I took it in 2016 and it has evolved since then The the curriculum was heavily built in addition to the instructors. I mentioned West Boss was also one of the foundational Voices in building Juno College's program Yeah, West Boss is just an amazing person Absolutely wonderful and a lot of his educational fingerprints are all over the Juno curriculum It's full of really clever lessons, really cool codelongs, and projects that he helped create. Since then, he's gone on to do his own thing and Genecologist continued to evolve, but knowing that there was a curriculum built by someone as informed, but also just, I feel like West really understands people really well. Yeah. He understands what they need and he is such an amazing educational mind that I really liked getting to actually after the book camp I took another job script with him as the instructor at general college and he just getting to hear him lecture is such a great experience. **\[14:03\]** **Sean:** Wow. Yeah, I thought it was cool taking one of his online courses. I've given them a lot of money **\[14:10\]** **Mike:** But never finished one of his courses because I never finish online course. This goes into the accountability thing You mentioned. I'm the same way. I have like all these JavaScript, you know, I don't know three or four You know things that I've signed up for or you know little class things that I've purchased where you get all these modules and that and I'm like halfway through all of them and I always get distracted. I should probably take your advice and get in one of these tape caps. **\[14:34\]** **Owen:** That's exactly, I have so many unfinished online courses. Every single, you know, actual Zoom or in-person course I've ever taken, I've finished every single one and that's sort of my thing. I have the same problem and that's why I need to have these structured courses. **\[14:51\]** **Sean:** I think that's a common thing. Part of the money-making plan for places like Udemy and whatever is like, they're cheap. People sign up for it, but never finish the course. **\[15:04\]** **Owen:** Yup, you got it. **\[15:06\]** **Sean:** I don't know how many pages, of course, I own on me. You done me, but I'm so much crazy. **\[15:11\]** **Owen:** So many. **\[15:12\]** **Sean:** Yeah. Yeah, it was back to West Boss. Yeah, I really liked West Boss. I went through his JavaScript 30 and didn't finish it twice. And that's nothing against West Boss. That's all about me. because I really like his, the way he describes his courses, like his content and instructs it, and he's really, really good. And I'm actually a little bit jealous that you got to take a class with him in person. **\[15:42\]** **Owen:** True story, the first time I met Wes was at my partner's graduation from General College of Technology, and he and I were on the same shirt. And so I've a great photo of Wes and I's shirt twins. **\[15:54\]** **Mike:** And so that's a great icebreaker. Yeah, I have a casual chat with him. What shirt were you wearing? **\[16:00\]** **Owen:** I mean, well, I'm a nerdy Canadian, so it was, of course, a red flannel. **\[16:07\]** **Sean:** Nice. Oh, and what is your favorite part of front end development? What do you like the most? What do you struggle with? There's so many different aspects. **\[16:18\]** **Owen:** Yeah, that's a really tough question. I will say, I feel the most underrated part web development is CSS. People are so hard on it. And I think it's so incredible because when you, people love to say, oh, CSS makes no sense. So you can't do it. No, CSS makes a lot of sense when you really grow to understand it. It actually is beautifully built. I'm a huge Flexbox fan. I adore Flexbox. I recently learned about Tab Atkins, Jr. who designed Flexbox who's just sounds like an incredible human being. So I would say that I really, I'm a big CSS defender, people are so hard on it and it's so great. The thing that makes me feel like I'm some sort of God is JavaScript. When I get something working in JavaScript, I just can't stop telling people about it and nobody cares what I've said. It's just such a cool experience to get it working. Specifically, I really love recently my obsession has been array methods. I love working with array methods. I think it's so cool that you can do with that stuff when you dig into how they work. It's incredible. The thing that's been my big goal in the last two years has been to get better with React. React is something I don't have as much professional experience with, so I've really been doing a deep dive into it because I've started teaching it and I need to understand how to set up and work a React app, and it's been such a huge growing experience for me. And I've gotten actually quite good at it. I'm quite pleased with the progress I've made. So Sean, I just answered a question by saying, well, all of it really. **\[18:02\]** **Sean:** But let's flip the question then. What part of front-end development do you not like, or you like the least? **\[18:10\]** **Owen:** So in my professional experience, I've worked with a lot of CMSs, which have ranged from ones I love to ones I don't love. I really struggled with Drupal. I found Drupal so hard to use, and that is largely based on its extremely steep learning curve. I've heard the same thing. I have no experience with Drupal. I just heard it's difficult to work with. It's really tough, and the thing I find is most of the documentation are written by the people who built it for, the people who built it because it is very community focused. So it's hard to sort of enter into that community and learn anything because you just end up in a situation where they're writing the answers to you as if you're also the person who built it. But I'm not. I'm brand new. The documentation thing, I think, **\[19:02\]** **Sean:** is common to all CMSs. Yeah. They just assume an expert level of knowledge because it's obvious to To me, why don't you know it? **\[19:11\]** **Owen:** Yeah, yeah, if there's a lot of that. And it's something that is, I feel starting to shift a bit in the web developer community, it's something that I hope continues to shift. I'm feeling a friendlier environment to newcomers in the past few years. I'd love to see that continue. Absolutely. Because it's been so cool. And it's something that I love about my job is, I'm working so hard to make this environment more friendly to new web developers. **\[19:38\]** **Mike:** Yeah, that's good. Hi, hope you're enjoying this episode. We're always looking for topic suggestions. So if there's anything you'd like us to discuss on the show, please let us know. **\[19:48\]** **Sean:** We're also looking for guests. If you have a guest that you think would be great for a podcast, please let us know. If there's a guest that you would love to come back, let us know. You can do that by visiting website 101podcast.com slash contact. **\[20:04\]** **Mike:** So, Owen, do you get to decide what technologies and things that you teach in your courses or is that sort of, I know that there's all kinds of different rules in the traditional like university or whatever, how involved in that process are you? **\[20:20\]** **Owen:** So I get to say, you know, I'm not the only voice, you know, I don't get to override anyone, but they do come to us with ideas and say, what do you all think, what are you all feeling? For example, recently we've been heavily debating, do we continue to teach floats? Is that something that is still relevant in the learning environment? Depending on which instructor you ask, you might get a different answer, and we keep sort of getting a feel for that. Let me just jump in here real quickly, got this subset of a bug-a-boo of mine. **\[20:52\]** **Mike:** For those who don't know, you're referring to, you're talking about float layouts, where an item is floated to the left or right, and things wrap around it and whatever, right? **\[21:01\]** **Sean:** So I want to just pump my for one second. I don't want to. There's no need to teach it anymore. Well, now this is FlexBlox or Grid. **\[21:09\]** **Mike:** Okay, then hold on. I just opened a can of worms. No, no, I actually agree with all that too. FlexBlox or CSS Grid is definitely the way to go in terms of layouts, but all I wanted to point out was the other day I was designing something and I needed some element to go over the right and I started to think about Flex and like, okay, I could put Flex on the parent and justify it and that and that. And then I just all of a sudden I thought, why don't I just put float right and see what happens? And I did and it's there and it works just fine. It's not a layout, it's just an element, like a text thing going to the right. But I will say that, you know, let's not, to your point earlier about how CSS is really a wonderful sort of language. You know, let's not forget that there are, there's a time and place for a lot of the parts of CSS or anything else. And I found one the other day where I just wanted to sit over on the right and it worked. **\[22:01\]** **Sean:** And what's going on here is Mike is actually using a float for what it was designed for. Right, that's true. Floating content and letting the other content go flow around it. **\[22:12\]** **Owen:** Sean, are you implying that a whole lot of what we used to do with websites was built around hacking systems that were never meant to do the thing we're using them for? **\[22:20\]** **Sean:** Clear fix. **\[22:22\]** **Owen:** And honestly, Mike, I somewhat agree with you. I love teaching the basics before we sort of introduce the more usual concept. Yeah. I think it's helpful to know where we came from. I approached most of my hobbies this way. You know, I, Sean knows I got really deep into comics at one point. I was a big believer in going back to the beginning, learning the origins of the, of the hobby, and where all the stories came from. I got really into the TV show Survivor back in about 20, 2009, way after anyone was getting into it. I made sure I went and watched all the old seasons. And I feel the same way about web development. **\[22:58\]** **Sean:** You got into it, you're still tweeting about survival. **\[23:01\]** **Owen:** Oh, all the time. Check out my Twitter profile, it'll explain all. Yeah, so all these things I love to go back to the beginning. And I felt that way about web development too. I like to have some idea of what a lot of these outdated concepts were that we maybe don't use, but it helps me understand the foundation of where we are now. That's my personal opinion. I think I might have gotten overruled and I think we are phasing out floats, but I liked the idea of continuing to teach them personally. **\[23:30\]** **Sean:** I think knowing what a float is and when to use it is important, but knowing how to make a float layout, like you would say with Bootstrap 3 or something, that's not useful anymore. **\[23:44\]** **Owen:** Yeah, I think that's a really important differentiation. **\[23:46\]** **Sean:** And you can take that even further. We could go back and talk about tables for layouts. **\[23:51\]** **Owen:** That's right. That's where I draw the line. **\[23:53\]** **Sean:** Nobody would ever use a table for a layout, but I still use tables in my sites when I actually have a need for tabular data. **\[24:02\]** **Mike:** Yeah, that's another example of using a certain technique to accomplish something else that they couldn't do before, and now there might be better options for that. **\[24:11\]** **Owen:** Now, I will point out that there is a use case for a lot of these outdated principles like, you know, table layouts, when you're in email development. Yes, you can't use anything good. **\[24:21\]** **Sean:** Right, you have no choice. Yeah. **\[24:24\]** **Owen:** That was straight up, that was my first job out of the bootcamp. I worked as an email developer for about nine months before I got transferred to the front end team. **\[24:30\]** **Mike:** Wow, that's such a nightmare. We're working with emails. **\[24:33\]** **Sean:** This is a good segue into, I was gonna ask you, what did you, what kind of jobs did you do between finishing the bootcamp and returning as an instructor? **\[24:44\]** **Owen:** Yeah, so that's a great question. So yeah, I got hired straight out of the bootcamp by a digital agency. They're called ICF Next. It was a wonderful, wonderful job. And I got hired as an email developer. They had an opening, and I grabbed it, and I was given so much support there. Honestly, I understand that a lot of people are really wary of working an email development, and maybe it could have been a bad job, but I loved my team so much. They were so supportive and such a wonderful group of people that not only did I get support in my job, but they became aware that I wanted to be transferred to the front end team, and without my even asking, they made that happen, which was just incredible. Just like, I have nothing but love for everyone I worked with there. And so I transferred to the front end team. I worked there for about three years at which point, Juno College came and asked me if I would be interested in applying for an instructor position. **\[25:41\]** **Sean:** Wow. So you were approached where you like, one of the like top students or like, How did they choose to bring you back from all of the hundreds of students they've had? **\[25:54\]** **Owen:** So I sort of was starting to feel like it was time for me to look for a new opportunity. And one of the women who worked at Genoa College was aware that I was looking for a new opportunity. And I guess they were looking for a new instructor and they remembered me and they knew my deal and felt like I would be a good fit. So yeah, I think it was a combination of knowing that I was open to a new opportunity and also knowing that I was the right, I'd say even more so than as a student, my personality type lent itself to what they were looking for and that is something that is really important because honestly, as important as all of the knowledge is in our industry, I'm also a huge, huge believer in working on soft skills, things like communication, paired programming, presentation skills, I think these things matter so, so much. And those sorts of skills are part of what made me an ideal fit for this **\[26:49\]** **Mike:** job. That's cool. I can see that. So you alluded to a second ago about soft skills as well as the more traditional stuff. In our line of work, Sean and I, it's always a struggle keeping up with new technologies because we're constantly delivering projects for clients and when do you do the learning? We talked earlier about I'm trying to learn all this new new JavaScripty stuff and I can't even do the course because I don't have time or whatever. So as a teacher, how do you find time to keep up to date with the latest because this industry moves so quickly, right? **\[27:25\]** **Owen:** Yeah, so there's a couple of components there that I think are worth talking about. One is this job has been so good for me getting a lot more solid on the basics. So easy when you're quickly pumping out websites to sort of just be grabbing little bits of information here and there and sort of mushing them together into a workable form and uploading them. But for me to go over exactly how the filter method works over and over and over again drills it into my head. I actually, when my parents were all teachers, my mom, my dad, my step mom, all teachers. and my dad actually at one point said to me to truly understand something, first you learn it, then you do it, then you teach it. Right. **\[28:16\]** **Sean:** I was a teacher also. Yes you were. So it is so true. Yeah. The best way to become an expert at something is to teach it to someone, even if you've just learned it yourself. **\[28:28\]** **Owen:** So this has been something where I am so much clearer on how so many pieces of CSS and JavaScript work than I ever have been in my career. Like I really understand position absolute or I really understand flex box or I really understand a lot of these array methods way better than I ever used to back when I was just working. So getting those basics solid has been a huge upside for me as a teacher. Now in terms of new technologies, this is something that like maybe I'm not learning about headless CMSes all the time. And that's something that definitely is a gap for me. But the good news is, Juno was always updating the curriculum all the time. We actually added React after I finished the bootcamp, but I was like, no, I wanted to learn that. But it's in the curriculum now. We're always looking to add new things. And anytime there's a new major piece of technology, we have these conversations. Do we update the curriculum? And while I'd say major overhauls, like adding React aren't going to be done every year, they are done every so often. And this is something that we're always talking about. CSS grids is something that was also added after I took the bootcamp we added that to the curriculum and so I can't say that I'm always going to be like on the cutting edge, but these evolutions of the curriculum do mean that I'm not going to be left too too far behind, which is which is kind of neat. And if I'm interested in the cutting edge, I guess I got to do it myself. **\[29:54\]** **Sean:** Trevor, how do you determine what your students learn? And I know you said you're not the sole decider on that, but how does a student who wants to get into it decide where to begin? And I remember myself, the only thing I needed to learn was CSS, JavaScript, and HTML back in 2005. It is still overwhelming. It's so easy to just get buried in all of this stuff. But knowing yourself and knowing what you need as a newcomer to this world is going to be the difference between making it and giving up. I think that if you're someone who needs structure and accountability like me, I would have given up if I tried to do it on my own. But because I was able to find a school in a community, I've been able to make it. On the other hand, you know, schools can be expensive, and it's not necessary for everyone. If you can do it on your own, then by all means, go for it, and we welcome you. Knowing your requirements are going to be what matters. **\[31:20\]** **Owen:** That's right. So yeah, it is still overwhelming. And it's so easy to just get buried in all of this stuff. I mean, it's sort of, you know, it's like, you know, if you first want to get into camping and there's like, you walk into mech and there's all this gear. And it's so easy to just go like, you know, I think this isn't for me, you know, I get it. But like, I think that it's so important to know yourself and know what you need as a new being entering this world because everybody is so different. Are you someone that just wants to bury yourself in books? Are you someone that can learn on your own and just take these sort of online courses? Are you someone that needs structure and accountability like me? Knowing what you need personally is going to be the difference between making it and giving up. I think that if you're me, if you're someone that needs a structure, if I tried to do it on my own, I promised you I would have given up. I know that about myself. But because I was able to find a school in a community, I've been able to make it. On the other hand, you know, I get it, schools expensive, it's not necessary for everyone. If you can do it on your own, then by all means, go for it, and we welcome you. Knowing your requirements are going to be what matters. If in terms of concrete answers of what you need to learn, I still think start with HTML. I still think it's a great place to start. This is full on sound of music. It's a very good place to start here. This is going to be the thing that gives you the foundation of everything you're going to learn. And I strongly recommend it. If I make it a little bit plug-e, Juno College offers free workshops and learning HTML. They're really, really cool. They give you a bit of an idea of what the school's like and they help you sort of talk through the basics. If people go to Juno College.com, you can get information about those workshops. They're really, really cool. I've had students that started in those workshops and then and graduate the bootcamp and now have jobs. And it's so, so satisfying to see. So, you know, even I'm not saying you have to then sign up for classes. You can take that free 101 class and just do that and that's totally fine. But if you're interested in getting your feet wet, I think those are really cool places to see, is this as cool as you thought it would be? Is this as fun as you thought it would be? Because the reality is that being a web developer is really, really hard. And if you don't find it fun, you're going to burn out. **\[33:54\]** **Sean:** Yeah, yeah, really hard is definitely true. And my personal thought is you need to be a type of person who's willing to always learn. **\[34:04\]** **Owen:** Yeah, yeah. **\[34:04\]** **Sean:** You can't get into this career and learn what you need to know and stop learning because you know what, every week, every month there's something new coming out just in CSS, which you mentioned you love. Container queries are coming soon. and I'm really excited about that. And I'm gonna have to learn how to use it as soon as the browser support is there. **\[34:29\]** **Owen:** I think that's such an important differentiation, Sean, because there's a lot of, let's say tech rows out there that love to tell you if code isn't your entire life, you're a bad developer. I reject that. I think that is ridiculous. You can have a life, you can have a family, you can have other hobbies. It's silly to think otherwise. However, what you said, Sean, it's completely accurate. you do have to always be willing to learn more because it is changing. This doesn't mean that you have to work, you know, eight hours Saturday and Sunday to be a good developer. What it does mean is you can't rest on your laurels. You can't say, I know my stack and I'm never learning anything else because it is changing and you will get left behind otherwise. **\[35:10\]** **Sean:** Yeah, well, the key thing in my opinion here is to evaluate whether it's worth learning. So, you know, like for me, my JavaScript is my weakest skill. Learning React is not on my plate. So I, going with a later way reactive framework, I've been putting my time into learning Alpine JS. Cool. Which I like and it does what I need. So I'm not rejecting React. I don't think it's a garbage framework or whatever it's just, it's not for me. Yeah. This is one of the key things that I think new students or newbies to web development need to know as they need to learn how to evaluate various texts. **\[35:58\]** **Owen:** I love that. Yeah. I think that we could do with a whole lot less of the, you know, my framework rules yours is garbage attitude that a lot of people have. We don't need to get like, you know, Xbox versus PlayStation here about this whole thing. We just don't need to do that. Yeah, we can instead just say hey cool. That's awesome that you know that one I know this one. Hey, maybe sometime we'll grab a couple drinks and we'll show you a little bit about each other's frameworks That's fun. Yeah, we don't need this rivalry **\[36:26\]** **Mike:** Absolutely. So now to expand on this a little bit Obviously, I guess we're all in agreement that you know don't rest on your laurels and keep learning and all the rest of it But the truth is there are a lot of people now who and we're learning a lot from our guests on this show even about this who really try to focus on just a handful of technologies. Maybe they don't even write code. Maybe they just build things with WordPress site builders and that's their career. We've spoken to many of them. We know many of them. What are your thoughts on that? I mean, obviously you're not going to get too, you know, preachy about it, but I mean, given how fast the industry moves, we also have these technologies where you can build an entire website without knowing any code and some people just learn to use that tool. So I mean, what are your thoughts on something like that? **\[37:14\]** **Owen:** I think it's great. I think it's super, super great. Anytime there is a need, someone has to be there to fill it. And the reality is, if anyone wants to specialize, I say more power to them. I actually have a family member who's gotten really, really good at using some of those frameworks to build websites for people and doesn't use code. And that rules. She's an amazing person. And the reality is, if you're going to pay someone to code a website with HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, that's really expensive. And that's not always going to be affordable for every single person out there. You know, if you are an actor who's trying to get auditions and is working as a waiter, you can't pay someone $8,000 to build your website. It's not happening. But maybe you don't know how to do it yourself for yourself and maybe you can pay someone $500 to do it on a framework for you. That is in need in our industry and someone has to fill it. So I love that there are people doing this. And then there are even specialties beyond just a website building. You can specialize in accessibility. **\[38:26\]** **Sean:** I was going to bring up accessibility. **\[38:28\]** **Owen:** Yeah, you can specialize in, I've heard people specialize in just being really, really good with Google map implementations on websites. That's incredible because I don't want to use those plugins are terrible. Oh my goodness, are they a nightmare. If someone wants to specialize in that, that's great. People specialize in checkout flow and there are all of these areas that if you get really, really good at them, you can make a lot of money. I mentioned earlier that I started out in email development. I transitioned into front-end. I had a friend who I first worked with there who has gotten so good with Salesforce Marketing Cloud's email deployment system that he's gone freelance and he's doing great. There's so many avenues here. And I think that all of these people are amazing developers in their own way in different fields and different areas. **\[39:21\]** **Mike:** That's cool. **\[39:22\]** **Sean:** Yeah, I would agree with that. Just because what myself and Mike focus on is bespoke development doesn't mean that somebody building $1,500 WordPress sites is not good, they're filling a different need. **\[39:40\]** **Mike:** Yeah, that's right. As long as there's a market for that, then there's gotta be people who are going to provide that service. **\[39:49\]** **Owen:** Yeah, absolutely. **\[39:50\]** **Sean:** One thing I always say, as long as you are able to satisfy your clients you're doing with the right thing and whether I would agree with your approach doesn't matter because if your clients are happy with what you do, you've filled their **\[40:06\]** **Owen:** need. Yeah, it sort of reminds me of, you know, like when people are really angry that a movie they don't like exists, it's so weird to me and it's like, yeah, maybe that's not your favorite movie, but it has fans and they're happy. What do you care? Right. That's an interesting **\[40:25\]** **Sean:** analogy. I like that. Totally worth young. One last question here, maybe some more, but this is the last one I have planned. What do you feel is the most important skill or trait that a web developer should have? What do you want the number one thing that your students take away from your course to be? **\[40:47\]** **Owen:** Oh, okay, so that's a really cool question. So the number one thing I want my students to take away would largely be, I mean, we touched on earlier, just a desire to learn because I think that if they come away from this program hungry for more knowledge, they're going to be in the best place possible moving forward. And maybe that could be sort of summed up as being like motivation realistically, if when the students come out of the boot camp, if they come out of it and they're not feeling motivated, they're going to have a hard time. I want them to be hungry to learn more, hungry to apply for jobs. These are the things that are going to propel them through the job hunt. And I think everyone in the industry knows the job hunt is one of the hardest things there is. You know, once you're in a job, you can feel good, you can learn, you can feel productive, but the job hunt has this really nasty habit of sucking away your energy at a time when you need it most. So it's that motivation that's going to get them through there. The other thing I do want to talk about is just I think I touched on earlier how important soft skills are and I really stand by that because if you may know HTML, CSS and JavaScript, the reality is So do thousands, tens of thousands of other people that are all hunting for the same job. What can separate you from the pack is your ability to communicate. It is your ability to work in teams. It is your ability to present. My partner has gotten so much praise at her current job from her ability to present her work well, both to her other teammates and her clients, and that is such an underrated skill for developers. So if you can work in this industry and you have the motivation to do well and you have the soft skills to separate yourself from the pack, I have no doubt that you will succeed. **\[42:54\]** **Sean:** Yeah. I couldn't agree more. Soft skills, absolutely necessary. You need to be able, especially if you're working directly with clients. Yeah. If you're on the web team and you're not interacting with clients, soft skills still import, but not to the same level. **\[43:09\]** **Owen:** If you ever want to go on your own as a freelancer, you need to be able to translate all this **\[43:15\]** **Sean:** jargon into stuff that your client can understand and you need to be able to translate what they're **\[43:20\]** **Mike:** saying so that you know what they want. Yeah, I remember this reminds me of we had a guest recently Andrew Welch from NY Studio 107 and something interesting he said was, you know, when you're communicating with a client, they're not going to understand what you're saying because it's not their job to understand what you're saying. They are not supposed to know all this code stuff that we're doing. So you can't sort of talk down to them or get upset when they don't get it because why would they get it, you know what I mean? It makes a lot of sense. That's really cool. **\[43:50\]** **Sean:** Yeah, I mean that's where the soft skills come in. We actually have two episodes all about jargon so that clients would understand what some of the technical jargon is. So this has been such an **\[44:06\]** **Mike:** informative episode. Oh, and is there anywhere you'd want our listeners to go check out links to your, you know, your school, whatever online, your online presence, anything like that? We can put **\[44:17\]** **Owen:** in the show notes. Sure. Yeah. I will. First of all, if anyone wants to see me tweet about movies and survivor, you can follow me on Twitter. I'm at Owen K. Craig. I don't know why you would want to, but go for it. Probably more importantly, if you are at all interested in checking out the work we do at Juno College of Technology. We're online at JunoCollege.com. There is a button on there at the top that says free events. If you want to try any of those free events, the really cool way to experience what Juno is all about. And it's a really, really awesome way to just check out web development. If you're like, I just want to see if it's for me, I think that's super, super cool. I know it's my job, of course, I'm very interested in it, but I really believe from what we're doing, I'm really, really happy with the work that we do, and hopefully anyone that checks us out will be too. **\[45:06\]** **Sean:** And if they check you out, hopefully they can get, oh, and as they're instructor, because **\[45:10\]** **Owen:** he's a good guy. Thank you so much, Sean. I had a great time here talking about it. **\[45:15\]** **Sean:** Yeah, thanks for being on the show. Yeah, thank you so much for coming out. **\[45:18\]** **Owen:** It's my pleasure. **\[45:19\]** **Sean:** The website 101 Podcast is hosted by me, Sean Smith. You can find me on LinkedIn. My username is caffeine creations or on Twitter, where my username is caffeine creation, C-A-F-F-E-I-M-E-C-R-E-E-8-I-O-M, or at my website caffeine creations dot C-A. **\[45:45\]** **Mike:** And by me, Mike Mella, you can reach me online at be like water dot C-A, and also on Twitter and LinkedIn, where my username is Mike Mella, that's M-I-K-E-M-E-L-L-A. You Close Transcript Have a question for Sean, Mike, and Amanda? [Send us an email](/contact). [![Listen on Google Play Music](/assets/images/google_podcasts_badge@2x.png)](https://www.google.com/podcasts?feed=aHR0cHM6Ly93ZWJzaXRlMTAxcG9kY2FzdC5jb20vZmVlZC5yc3M%3D)[![itunes badge](/assets/images/itunes-badge.png)](https://itunes.apple.com/ca/podcast/website-101-podcast/id1449510012)[![itunes badge](/assets/images/spotify-logo.png)](https://open.spotify.com/show/3rmSM1R9t6q1U8DmYWJRSO?si=NrYPMgDaRV6Dd56PjEaPow)### Season 04 - 1 [ 'Click Here' Hurts Your SEO and UX: Why It's Time to Change](https://website101podcast.com/episodes/season-04/episode-1/click-here/) - 2 [ How to Talk to Your Web Developer: Communication Tips for Clients](https://website101podcast.com/episodes/season-04/episode-2/how-to-talk-to-your-web-developer/) - 3 [ Red Flags](https://website101podcast.com/episodes/season-04/episode-3/red-flags/) - 4 [ Content Strategy](https://website101podcast.com/episodes/season-04/episode-4/content-strategy/) - 5 [ Accessibility](https://website101podcast.com/episodes/season-04/episode-5/accessibility/) - 6 [ Improving Your Website Without a Redesign: Content Audit, Usability Testing & More](https://website101podcast.com/episodes/season-04/episode-6/how-to-improve-your-website-without-doing-a-full-redesign/) - 7 [ Content Marketing](https://website101podcast.com/episodes/season-04/episode-7/content-marketing/) - 8 [ Alternatives to Google Analytics](https://website101podcast.com/episodes/season-04/episode-8/alternatives-to-google-analytics/) - Bonus[ Listener Survey - What Topics do you Want to Hear More of?](https://website101podcast.com/episodes/season-04/episode-/listener-survey-what-topics-do-you-want-to-hear-more-of/) - 9 [ Website Optimization and Speed](https://website101podcast.com/episodes/season-04/episode-9/website-optimization-and-speed/) - 10 [ Exploring WordPress Website Development with Laura Bailey](https://website101podcast.com/episodes/season-04/episode-10/wordpress/) - 11 [ From Novice to Bootcamp Instructor](https://website101podcast.com/episodes/season-04/episode-11/from-novice-to-bootcamp-instructor/) - 12 [ Pimp Your Typography](https://website101podcast.com/episodes/season-04/episode-12/pimp-your-typography/) ### All Seasons - [Season 01](https://website101podcast.com/season/01/) - [Season 02](https://website101podcast.com/season/02/) - [Season 03](https://website101podcast.com/season/03/) - [Season 04](https://website101podcast.com/season/04/) - [Season 05](https://website101podcast.com/season/05/) - [Season 06](https://website101podcast.com/season/06/) - [Season 07](https://website101podcast.com/season/07/) - [Season 08](https://website101podcast.com/season/08/) - [Season 09](https://website101podcast.com/season/09/) <!\[CDATA\[YII-BLOCK-BODY-END\]\]>