Crafting a new career for yourself is easier with a template.

From Museum Curator to Full Stack Web Developer Intern, Website Innovator.

"Before I came to Nucamp, I couldn't build any projects. After finishing the bootcamp, I had 4 projects built and deployed. It was a really good choice for me. I made the best use of the instructors as mentors. For me, Nucamp was the mentorship program I needed."

This is Sophie Lee, a Nucamp Full Stack Bootcamp graduate and now a Full Stack Web Developer Intern at Website Innovator.

Since she was little, Sophie always enjoyed creating things by hand.

This creativity has bled into her adulthood as she still loves crafting with her kids, writing, and practicing yoga.

She pursued what she thought was a picture-perfect creative job: a museum curator.

Over time the veneer began to fade as the stress and lifestyle that came with the job took its toll.

Having to be available 24-hours a day in order to contact people across the world mixed with a lot of difficult work left her feeling there must be something better out there for her.

This caused a lot of doubt for her in the medium she had pursued.

Her husband thought she would be suited for coding and encouraged her to learn.

At first she dabbled in Python on her own and found it was something she was really interested in.

She self-studied for about 6 or 7 months until she ran out of ink.

Sophie knew she needed a portfolio, but she felt stuck and frustrated knowing she had all the pieces of the puzzle but didn’t have the big picture to complete it.

For the next layer of her coding journey she realized she needed more tools for her collage: advice, guidance and a direction toward what kind of projects to build.

Beginning her search to connect with someone who could help, she came across coding bootcamps.

Nucamp stood out to her after finding videos on YouTube and that gave her an idea of how the bootcamps were run.

She could feel the energy Nucamp provided students from the website alone.

What sealed the deal for Sophie was that Nucamp bootcamps are self-paced, affordable, worked around her schedule and provide a space to connect with an instructor and other students.

She knew it would be a perfect fit being able to gain a mentor all the while being able to keep her day job.

Describe your job search process.

“I spent a little bit of time to rebuild my portfolio and started applying for jobs. After a few months of applying to a lot of positions I reached out to past graduates who suggested going to Nucamp’s Slack channel. Zandra on the slack channel helped me a lot by suggesting I contact local agencies. A month after taking her advice I landed my job!”

What advice do you have for people who are thinking about attending a bootcamp, but haven't yet registered?

"If someone feels stuck, I definitely recommend considering it. It's like learning a language. You can learn many things, like a word, or a sentence, but when you really want to write something or speak the language correctly, you need to see how real people use the language in their life. The bootcamp helps you do that. It's only after you see and experience real people use coding can you become more confident using it yourself."

What advice do you have for people who have already started the bootcamp and they are just about to finish Bootstrap?

"It's really important to build a project. From day 1, start building something. That's the only way to digest the material. Make the best use of your instructors as well."