Keys to Success

1. Keys to Success

Success in this course depends on how you approach it. The course is intellectually challenging, but by setting realistic expectations, you’ll be prepared to overcome many difficulties that might arise. Take some time to prepare yourself by reading these tips and suggestions.

2. Boot Camp Mindset

Being committed, compassionate toward yourself, collaborative, and confident will translate into a successful learning experience. The following sections present ideas for how to apply that mindset as you navigate the boot camp.

2.1 Be Committed

Like any skill, advanced Java engineering requires diligence, practice, and a desire to improve. These things can’t be taught in a classroom—the effort must come from you.

Besides attending class and completing the activities and the capstone, you should try to put in extra hours of independent practice every week. With that in mind, try to set aside time for extra practice or study in advanced topics. Doing so will help you stick to a schedule and manage your time, which is key to your success.

Remember that making mistakes is part of the process! You'll encounter errors, but with each problem that you solve, you’ll add another instrument to your tool kit.

2.2 Be Compassionate Toward Yourself

Throughout much of this boot camp, you might feel like you're between victories and struggling to come up with solutions. You might feel discouraged, like everyone else gets it and you don’t. This feeling, commonly called impostor syndrome, is a lie!

Everyone struggles and feels frustrated with Java—regardless of their expertise. The field is huge. Everyone has areas where they excel and others where they struggle, so resist the temptation to compare yourself to others. Don’t downplay your strengths or focus only on your weaknesses, and remember that you're in a safe space to make mistakes. The fact that you want to be in this course is the best indicator that you belong here.

2.3 Be Collaborative

This course involves more than just technical skills—it’s also a chance to build the type of community that you’ll need to succeed as a professional in the field. Remember, no matter your level of knowledge starting out, that every student is going through the same experience. Many of you will have similar doubts and fears, and many of you will share hopes and expectations.

As you work through the course, follow these tips to start forming your professional community:

  • Reach out to other students to form real or virtual study groups (via Zoom).

  • Create private channels in Slack to discuss the general concepts and ideas for applications.

  • Leverage the knowledge of your classmates as well as that of the support team you already have.

Collaborating to find solutions is a major part of working as an engineering professional. Any professional role that you take after the boot camp will require a lot of teamwork, so treat this as an opportunity to work on your soft skills while you develop your Java skills.

Although you’ll complete some of the work for this course on your own, you’ll also work with other students to achieve success. You’ll learn how to guide someone through your logic, communicate your thought processes, explain your code, and establish solutions with a team.

Besides working on group projects, you’ll have opportunities to pair up with other students to complete activities and think through concepts. For example, you’ll participate in pair programming, which is a common technique in agile development. This technique involves having one student drive, or write code, while another student navigates, or reviews it in real time. Take advantage of these opportunities as enthusiastically as you can. They offer terrific experiences for you to discuss during job interviews down the road.

As you'll soon discover, the collaboration extends well beyond your classmates and this course. You belong to a larger community that exists online, where engineering professionals ask questions, get feedback, discuss solutions, and learn new ideas. The Stack Overflow online forum, for example, offers an open community for coders to learn, share their knowledge, and build their careers.

One of the greatest advantages of this course setting is the network of professionals that you’ll build; your classmates will become hiring managers or employees of companies who will seek more engineers in the future! In this way, the community of learning that you build in this boot camp will supply a bridge to your future endeavors. The strength of that bridge depends on the amount of effort you put into its construction.

In other words, now is the perfect time to get to know each other.This course involves more than just technical skills—it’s also a chance to build the type of community that you’ll need to succeed as a professional in the field. Remember, no matter your level of knowledge starting out, that every student is going through the same experience. Many of you will have similar doubts and fears, and many of you will share hopes and expectations.

2.4 Be Confident

Remind yourself each day that you're here for a reason and that you can succeed.

The work that you’ll do has tremendous value. It will translate to hard skills, and you'll truly get out of this program what you put into it!

2.5 Be Original

Remember that the goal of this program is to learn valuable skills. No matter how difficult the course becomes, you must always turn in original work—plagiarism is not tolerated.

When you feel overwhelmed or frustrated, don't be afraid to reach out. You have many available resources, including Slack, office hours, and tutoring sessions.

If your instructional staff or student success managers determine that you've plagiarized work, your student success manager will determine the appropriate course of action. Such actions may include, but are not limited to, a documented plagiarism discussion, an incomplete grade assignment, or ineligibility for graduation.

What Is Plagiarism?

Plagiarism is the presentation of material, concepts, or products from another person, group, or entity as your own work without citation or reference. Acts of plagiarism may include but are not limited to the following:

  • Copying the direct words or images of another person without using quotation marks or citing the original source.

  • Presenting another’s ideas in your own words without acknowledging the original source.

  • Failing to acknowledge collaborators on homework and project assignments.

  • Submitting work that you previously wrote for an assignment in another class without identifying it as such (self-plagiarism).

  • Using, paraphrasing, or copying content, statistics, images, and other materials directly from blogs, websites, or online publications without citing the original source.

  • Submitting downloaded papers, slide decks, or other documents without citing the original source.

  • Taking code written by another person and presenting it as your own work.

The following definition from the University of Birmingham School of Computer Science provides additional details about avoiding plagiarism as it relates to code:

"Almost all computer programs contain many ideas borrowed from elsewhere. Many also contain short sections of actual code copied from elsewhere. For example, writing a section of program to create a new window on screen with a menu at the top of the window is often done by simply copying a few lines of code from an example in a programming manual or textbook, either with or without a few minor changes. This is normally regarded as fair use and typically requires no acknowledgement.

"Any more significant copying of code from elsewhere should be acknowledged, however. The acknowledgement can be put in comments within the program itself. Reference to the source of the original material should be made in the same way as in essays or other documents (except that it may not be possible to use italics or other font variations). Obviously, it isn't possible to put sections of code in quotation marks to indicate that they have been taken directly from elsewhere. Instead, the comments should make it clear which sections of code have been copied from elsewhere. Equally, the comments should make it clear when the basic method has been copied from elsewhere, but changes made to the details."

You may share ideas among peers as long as you cite all sources accordingly.

Tips to Avoid Plagiarism

Follow these tips to help ensure that you meet boot camp standards for submitting original work while avoiding plagiarism.

Cite All Borrowed Content

When using a portion of someone else’s content, be sure to either put the borrowed material in quotation marks, use an in-text citation, or cite the source in your notes. When possible, include a link to the original source, the name of the author, the name of the publication from which you derived the content, and the date of publication in your citation.

Assignments submitted as Google Slides or PowerPoint presentations carry the same rules as a paper or report; as long as you provide a proper citation, it's acceptable to quote from someone else’s work to reach your goal or illustrate an idea.

Try to follow general APA citation style guides when citing your sources. For more information, refer to the Purdue Online Writing Lab page on citing electronic resources.

Use Your Own Designs

During the boot camp, you may refer to other people’s work for design inspiration. While you might use the same color palettes, typefaces, or assets, it is unacceptable to copy the entire visual composition of someone else's work. Make it your own.

Cite All Borrowed Code

Whenever you use a portion of someone else’s code, be sure to provide a web link and the source of the material as a comment.

Think of writing code like writing an essay: it's totally acceptable to quote a few sentences from someone else’s work, but copying an entire work and passing it off as your own is unacceptable.

Comment Your Code

Use comments to break down how your code functions. Thoughtfully commenting on code will benefit you in a variety of ways. Most industries that involve coding expect developers to use easy-to-read code with comments that detail functionality. This best practice enables collaborators to engage more easily with the work.

Commit to GitHub Early and Often

When you complete a step or fix a bug, commit your code to GitHub. This provides you and your instructional staff with a visible way to track the evolution of your code, bit by bit. Frequent commitment to GitHub—an industry standard—helps prevent collaboration obstacles.

Additional Resources

Remember, copying someone else's work and passing it off as your own violates an ethical code between you, your fellow students, and the original creator of the work. For more information, guidelines, and tools for avoiding plagiarism, refer to the following additional resources: