A Random Comparison of a Project From Bootcamp & the COVID-19 Pandemic
I’m still currently searching through the job market for my first position as a Software Engineer out of bootcamp. I have definitely been on the struggle bus — or, a rollercoaster would be a better term — for a while but I’m thankful for all of the interviews I have had so far!
I was chatting with my career coach’s mentor the other week and she brought up something super interesting to me. While looking over my resume, she had taken a look at my technical projects that I put and one of my projects had caught her eye — but because it reminded her of an article from New York Times that she read previously about hobbies during the pandemic!
During Flatiron School, I worked on a project with a cohort-mate (what’s up, Diego!) called “Poketrade” — a web app that allows users to upload their Pokémon card collection to share with others and set up trades within the discussion board-like trade forum.
She had read from this article (by Jacob Bernstein, 2021) that there was one person, Nicholas Abouzeid, who took some of his stock profits and “…put them into Pokémon collectibles”. He had grown up with the Pokémon franchise and decided to be diverse in how to use his spendings and money holdings.
Well, Nicholas, if you’re ever looking for a way to showcase your vast Pokémon card collection… you have a couple of software engineers who are able to get that working for you!
Just like Abouzeid, Poketrade was envisioned through our childhood memories and our continuing interest of Pokémon. As of right now, Poketrade is built fully with Ruby on Rails with Bulma UI as our main UI. After more experience with React and practicing CSS, I think we’ll be capable of bringing it to a more modern web app while still using Rails for our backend.
It’s crazy to see how much I’ve grown since my time at Flatiron School. I’m still proud of how much I was able to accomplish with Poketrade — but now that I have more experience and knowledge with other languages and technologies, my growth is evident in my work up until now. Perhaps my next side project will be to convert Poketrade into a React app.
