UCLA Economics Undergrad Becomes Successful Software Developer
Betty Chen is no stranger to challenge. She spent her youth in vastly different places, China, Vancouver, Hong Kong, eventually settling in Los Angeles five years ago. She now works at a lucrative job as a Front End Software Engineer and Designer, but this career wasn’t always the one she yearned for. Right before entering Sabio she went to UCLA for an undergrad in economics and accounting.
“What brought me to Sabio, was I first started taking a C++ intro to computers at UCLA and I liked it, and I was like, well, maybe coding is something I want to try out.” Betty asked around her friends for recommendations and narrowed down her choices to Sabio and one other coding Bootcamp. She ultimately choose Sabio after meeting Gregorio Rojas (Sabio’s Co-Founder and CTO) at an Info Session. “It wasn’t so intimidating, like the other bootcamps are having to make you study everything beforehand then test into the bootcamp. Doing the PreWork at Sabio eased us into the actual bootcamp.”
Betty was immediately drawn to the “obvious feel of community,” at Sabio. “When I met Gregorio and Liliana Monge (Sabio’s Co-Founder,) I felt like it wasn’t like the other bootcamps which are so profit oriented. I remember when I was looking at CodeSmith, they were saying ‘Out students come from Ivy League school.’ And I was just thinking, ‘Why does that matter?” Sabio is very humble, and there’s this sense of community. I knew they cared more about the quality of the education than the fantasy of marketing. I chose it because I could trust the people there.”
Right after her graduation in June 2017, Betty jumped straight into Sabio and had a blast. “It was a really good experience. I think I got really lucky, because I loved the people in my cohort. I’m sure everybody says that, but I really think that my cohort was really fun.” Betty loved the vast variety of people in the class coming from different background and experiences, “Some people had experience, some people were like me, had just graduated doing something completely different. I liked how we all came from different walks of life, it was just really supportive.”
One of her favorite aspects of cohort was how their small group worked together as a team. This is second only to the fact they got to work on a real project. “When I came out of Sabio, it wasn’t obvious that I had just gone to a bootcamp. I felt like I could actually say ‘I worked on a real project for a real client, because that did happen. Every week we would have to have a demo, the client comes in, we build features you know according to the clients needs and wants. I can actually talk about it like a real software engineer, so I feel like it’s more of a profitable experience that Sabio offers, rather then just being a student.”
Betty’s instructor was Mike McGranahan, a senior instructor with over a decade of experience. “Mike was like my idol. I wanted to be like him when I grew up, he’s such an awesome teacher. He really taught me that experience in coding is super important alongside knowledge. Mike was really available, he actually met with everyone individually at least once a day. He was also so patient with us, making sure everybody actually focused and were just on top of things.”
After graduating, Betty spent time pursuing her dream of building her own website and app as she went on the job hunt. “It was something I really wanted to do after I graduated. Build my own web app of a coffee shop guide for people to know where to study. I was studying so much when I was at Sabio, so I’d go to coffee shops and a lot of my friends would ask me all the time, ‘Oh, where’s a good place to study? Where can I find parking?’”
Although Betty didn’t have to wait long for her dream job opportunity to appear, less than two months after graduation that she got offered the position of front end software developer at Bonafide Management Systems. It was with Sabio’s unique experience and instruction of talking code out loud that Betty attributes to nailing her job interview. “Sometimes you’re just so used to typing and thinking about debugging all these issues in your head. I think because of the classroom setting, we talked to each other. We did code talks as well. From this I was prepared to talk about certain topics and concepts out loud which I feel made me sound a lot more knowledgeable and actually made me comfortable putting code into conversation.”
Sabio’s influence didn’t stop there. At her actual job, Betty feels the experience Sabio gave her of actually knowing the process of a project is invaluable. “It’s not just learning how to code, learning javascript or HTML. At Sabio we learned how to put together projects with other people, building code on top of other people’s code. When I started my job I was actually pretty knowledgeable. I knew github was the thing to use. Slack was the really “in,” community channel. It all just made me seem like I was a seasoned software developer, not just a student who learned coding.”
Even though her time at Sabio is over, Betty plans to make use of the network. “There’s a lot of good resources out there, because as Sabio grows, my network grows too.” Betty has also made use of Sabio’s multiple free meetups, specifically the ones on ReactJS. “I needed to learn it for work and they expected me to learn it on the job, but I have this amazing resource of workshops on the side. Through that and the slack channel I was able to learn quickly and correctly.”
Betty’s software development future even extends beyond her job. With Sabio’s help and recommendations, she recently got accepted into a post-bacc Computer Science Minor Program at Tufts University, where she’ll be heading in just a few months.
Additionally, Betty loves encouraging other people to follow in her footsteps, but while emphasizing one key point, “Bootcamps are not magic. You get out what you put in, so you should really be interested and do a lot of side work by yourself. You should always be coding, learning new framework, subscribing to JavaScript newsletter, finding out new features. Bootcamps are an amazing starting point, but you have to practice a lot of self learning and improvement.”
In terms of Sabio, Betty muses how now is a fantastic time to join. “I know there’s new offices in DTLA and it looks so nice. They also have a project management course, Blockchain, Cyber Security, React. All these things I wish were around when I was there, they’ve grown so much and continue to grow, and I’ve only been gone a few months. Also, now is the time of coding and technology, even if you don’t want to be a software engineer, you should still learn to code. There’s just so much going on in this field. Now is the time to join.”
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Written by Sassy Mohen
