Turning an eye for design into a passion for teaching web development

Behind the scenes of a Front End Developer who teaches at Nucamp

"There are people who say you don’t need a coding bootcamp because you can learn everything on your own. I push back on that and say that a bootcamp provides the support most people need to get through the struggles they would otherwise face alone." -Naasir Bush, Nucamp Instructor

Naasir Bush started off teaching himself coding by reading books.

Some of his favorites to this day are Eloquent JavaScript by Marijn Haverbeke, The Missing Manual series (by various authors), and You Don’t Know JS by Kyle Simpson.

He also started his tech journey by running the help desk walking customers through the company’s app and answering questions.

By getting his foot in the door while studying, Naasir was able to surround himself with people who had web development and software engineer jobs he aspired to have one day.

Naasir enrolled to pursue a software development degree at a 4-year university and made sure to let his career goals be known to everyone he could.

In the office, he would ask the developers questions about their careers and things he was learning on his own.

By letting everyone know he wanted to become a developer, Naasir set himself up for success when the company eventually dissolved his help desk job.

Even though he was losing that position, Naasir was offered to stay on and help revamp the company’s website.

As soon as the next day he was thrown into the weeds right away, being asked to delve into Bootstrap and other more advanced skills than his foundation of HTML and CSS.

Since he had just started his Software Engineering degree, he didn’t have time to wait to learn these new skills.

He looked into coding bootcamps to get himself up to speed quickly and affordably.

Nucamp had the tech stack and price point he was looking for and started with Web Development Fundamentals and eventually completed the Full Stack Bootcamp as well.

During that time Naasir met Ludo, Nucamp’s CEO, at an in-person Nucamp workshop Ludo led (pre-COVID).

Naasir’s time at Nucamp elevated his skills to excel in his new position.

He also grew his network of classmates and instructors that he could bounce ideas off of and learn from.

Staying connected with this community helped him gain the confidence to become a Nucamp instructor.

Teaching others coding has strengthened his skills and helped him fill in any gaps for himself along the way.

Naasir is one of Nucamp’s best instructors with an average 4.7/5 student rating and many glowing reviews.

“Teaching is my favorite thing to do, even above coding and my car hobby. Teaching others gives me what I didn’t have as a kid. I felt wrote-off as a student when I was a kid and it’s incredibly rewarding for my to see the “light-bulb” moments for my students.”

Fast forward a few years, and Naasir has taught over 100’s of Nucamp students, having taught the React course 19 times back-to-back, and is now about to graduate from his Software Engineering degree.

His experience of being self-taught, a coding bootcamp student, and now a Software Engineer student has put him in the unique position to say how valuable coding bootcamps really are.

For Naasir, learning on his own and his engineering degree were both slow and even created other road bumps along the way such as outdated information.

Naasir’s Nucamp experience gave him a strong community to back him and the guidance of a knowledgeable instructor to get him through the struggles along the way.

How did you manage being a Nucamp student, full-time student, with a full-time job, and family?

“I am very focused. I view it as a marathon not a sprint. 6am-10pm every day, including Saturdays, I’m in front of a screen in-between making time for family. I LOVE coding”

How do you get through imposter syndrome?

“It gets better over time. The way I’ve dealt with imposter syndrome is when I realize I feel doubt setting in, I must be tenacious and keep going. There have been so many times where I have been stuck and doubting myself, so I shut the computer off and went for a walk... and then solved it. I’ve even solved things in my sleep before! Having doubts and then solving that problem is an amazing feeling. The biggest cure for imposter syndrome is not giving into it.”

watch Naasir’s live Campfire interview with Nucamp’s CEO, Ludo, here.