The thing with Launch School is once you are done, you will realize just how fundamentally necessary everything is. Suffice to say, I have finished the core curriculum and was promoted to a DevOps engineer at my current company.

I remember starting Launch School almost two years ago in 2018, about the same time that I started a new job. I was already working in tech as an IT Systems Administrator, but I wanted to propel my career into something more fulfilling where I could not maintain systems all day. I wanted to get out of the grind of a cost centric job and propel myself into something that provided more value to the business. After dabbling for years, trying to find a program that worked for me, and never feeling satisfied, I finally ran into launch school and started the Ruby Track.

Suffice to say, I have finished the core curriculum and was promoted to a DevOps engineer at my current company. I have Launch School's Core Curriculum to thank heavily for providing me the skillset needed to transition into my current role.

I almost exclusively use python for automation in my current role; working with API's and the bottom-up approach that launch school provided has helped me succeed in this endeavor. At the beginning of launch school, I wondered how you could have so few courses, and people still admitted that this course could take a year+ to get through. Once I started, I ducked into the deep pool of reality on how much information Launch School expects you to master.

From learning arrays to reading documentation to solving problems, everything went into so much detail I immediately knew this program was for me. Learning the basics started to give me incredible insights into stuff that I was already working on at work but had no idea how they worked at a fundamental level. I always ended up googling for answers and would spend hours searching for someone else's solution to fit into what I understood to solve the problem that I had at hand.

Currently, I am a key point of contact for developers when they need help with an API because I have demonstrated my knowledge and expertise in understanding how an API works at a fundamental level. I know how to dissect APIs so well that I have almost become a resident expert. Making calls to an API is the same stuff you learn in Launch School but with little extra knobs and features attached.

This fundamental approach is true for almost everything that I currently do at work and why I firmly believe that Launch School is worth the time and effort. You will see things in the Launch School curriculum that are hard to find almost anywhere else on the web without long hours of searching. The thing with Launch School is once you are done, you will realize just how fundamentally necessary everything is. You will continue to go back to that foundation for everything you do, regardless of what language or program stack you decide to work in or pursue.