Was it all worth it in the end? Without a doubt, my answer is a resounding yes! After 10 weeks on the job hunt, I accepted an offer for a position where I’ll be making more than $100k/year.

If you’re a Launch School student, you already know that the curriculum and instructors are top notch. As a Capstone student, you can expect the same level of pedagogy, rigor, and thoughtfulness. The only difference is that Capstone is several times over more intense, more interactive, and even more personalized.

Before my cohort started, I had many worries. Would the remote nature of the program result in a diminished learning experience? Would very recent changes to the program result in worse outcomes for graduates? Were the promised outcomes simply “too good to be true”?

During the first week of Capstone, these worries of mine quickly dissolved. Our cohort was distributed all over the US, but everyone was synchronized on the same schedule. Moreover, our twelve hour days were meticulously planned, even down to lunch and break times. Activities were optimally split between lectures with our mentor, cohort wide activities, team activities, and individual work. Time was precious, and we wasted none of it.

We also made ample use of real time video chat. There were even a few occasions where my team spent the entire day on video chat, either discussing research and/or pair programming. The whole thing just felt very collaborative in general. I learned something new from each of my Capstone peers, and it was truly a delight to go through this crazy experience with them!

By the time the job hunt phase rolled around, Capstone surpassed my already high expectations yet again. Yes, we were all on different schedules now. But there was never a time when I didn’t know what to do next. I was pushed so far beyond my comfort zone in the areas of networking, facing rejection, and even public speaking. I presented a talk about our Capstone project at various tech meetups in the Bay Area, and the feedback was nothing short of incredible.

Was it all worth it in the end? Without a doubt, my answer is a resounding yes! After 10 weeks on the job hunt, I accepted an offer for a position where I’ll be making more than $100k/year. Moreover, this job is everything I wanted in terms of location, company size, product, and people. I’ll be using Python in my new job by the way, and I’m not worried at all about the change in language. I know that the fundamentals I learned at Launch School will be more than enough to carry me through.

Don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t easy. The Capstone schedule was so demanding that I dreamt about code at night. Besides that, it was really difficult to explain to my friends and family what I was doing. People discouraged me from moving to the super expensive Bay Area before I had a job offer. If you’re mentally prepared for all that though, then I would definitely encourage you to go for it. Capstone will propel you like a rocket ship to the moon.