⚔️ The Battle of the Databases: SQL, Mongo and the Bootcamp Rollercoaster

Hello everyone! 👋

If you follow me, you know I am deep in the bootcamp and the emotional rollercoaster is… epic. The latest module brought us the SQL and MongoDB duo, and I have to confess something: the stress is real, but so is the fascination.

🫠 The Stress of Not Writing Code

One of the main shocks is that, all of a sudden, I am not typing Python code in VS Code. We are in the console, learning the language of databases, and my junior brain sets off an alarm: “You are forgetting commands!”, “You do not even remember how to run an activity any more!”. It is a kind of false amnesia that a lot of us get when we change environment. Feeling that I am not writing makes me doubt whether I am learning, but I know it is part of internalising a new query language.

💖 An Unexpected Crush: SQL

But, surprise, SQL has won me over. At a beginner level, I find it very logical and, I would even dare to say, easy (again, at the basics). It really annoys me that so little time is given to this module. Handling data is what gives life to any application! It is true that it seems “cooler” to only know Python, but the truth is that handling data is everything. To me, it is the backbone.

I have not ruled out specialising in databases when I finish the bootcamp. I am getting a taste for the console, and even more for the idea of sending processed data off so that “someone else can work with it”. 😂 (Only half joking, but I have loved the concept).

⏳ Real Life and FOMO

FOMO (Fear of Missing Out) in this little world is getting bigger and bigger, and right now I feel completely overwhelmed. The end of the year is coming and, between work, CrossFit, and having the little ones with fevers (all at once! 😭), the time to study shrinks to crumbs. To be clear, the first thing I drop in a collapse is CrossFit, which should be the last one, because it keeps my head straight! But anyway, I still have not perfectly balanced all the branches of my life.

The feeling is of a race towards I do not know where, where everything goes by incredibly fast and superficially, but of course… it is a bootcamp! An intensive course to acquire the basics of each thing, and then go deeper into whatever we like most.

🚀 Taking Giant Steps (Despite the Embarrassment)

Despite the mental collapse, I keep uploading mini projects to GitHub and looking for job openings. I do not find many that fit (with no experience), but I keep insisting.

The most important thing I have done this week is put together my portfolio to send to the teachers and the talent team. It still embarrasses me enormously to send these things because I always think I have done it badly, or not well enough, but I am breaking those barriers little by little… and that is progress!

I am sharing it here too, in case you want to take a look:

👉 https://mi-portfolio-dev-laura-montironi.vercel.app/

We have finished the databases module! Now we are starting FastAPI, and this is beginning to take the shape of a real API. I will keep you posted. Lots of encouragement to everyone!