Deciding to enroll in bootcamp can be a difficult decision. It’s a decision that can be truly life-altering, opening up a range of opportunities to you. After you’re trained in a digital skill like data science or web development, you’ll be able to benefit from the lucrativeness of the tech industry, or move up in other industries. But it also necessitates a weighty commitment. You’ll want to do your due diligence to understand whether this commitment is right for you. When doing this, you’ll consult blogs and forums, ask acquaintances, and look at course pages.

We want to help you in your journey of understanding whether bootcamp is right for you, so we’re putting you in touch with our outstanding alumni community. These alumni will be here to answer all your burning questions, provide you with helpful advice, and share their bootcamp experiences. You’ll get to hear what it’s like to go through bootcamp from a person who’s already been there.

Today we want to introduce you to one of our alumni community members, Fedor Mashoshin. People who are interested in learning more about the web development bootcamp can contact Fedor through our alumni ambassador page, and he’ll be able to answer your inquiries and speak to his personal experiences.

Before Studying With Lighthouse

Before studying with Lighthouse, Fedor was living far away on the other side of the globe, in Russia. There, he was engrossed in a career as a sales manager. He worked in sales management roles for over half a decade, but that’s not the only kind of employment he tried his hand at. He also did things like bartend and work as a lifeguard, trying out different jobs, gaining interesting experiences, and broadening his perspective. Through it all, he was trying to find a niche for himself; a position of employment where he could thrive and find meaning.

When pursuing his education, Fedor attained a degree in computer science. There, his speciality was the economic sphere: how to calculate and program economic parameters, for example. But that wasn’t precisely what he actually wanted to do in his day to day life. “I wanted to be a real programmer, to write things for websites and mobile applications,” says Fedor. But unfortunately, he didn’t have the right experience to make that a reality.

Immigrating to Upgrade His Coding Skills

When Fedor started thinking about immigrating to Canada, he realized that he’d want to change his career. “I didn’t really want to be a sales manager,” Fedor says. “And since I had a computer science background, I wanted to finally, hopefully, make it work for a career.” To accomplish those aims, he needed to upgrade his skills either through college or a bootcamp. “College was one year or two years too long for me,” Fedor recounts. “I didn’t have that much time, I wanted it as quickly as possible. So I choose a bootcamp.”

Fedor applied to Lighthouse’s bootcamp while still in Russia, just before the pandemic hit. When it did hit, his immigration process was halted for a while. After waiting patiently for some months, he was finally able to take a flight to Vancouver and officially enroll.

At first, his experience in bootcamp was a bit challenging, because English isn’t his first language and he hadn’t been speaking it for very long. He relied on Google translate and other apps to help him. “It was a tough first month because I needed to understand both the programming part and the language part,” Fedor says. “But after a month, it was much easier.”

Beginning a Career as a Software Developer

By the end of bootcamp, Fedor was totally ready for his job search. “My resume was ready, my LinkedIn page was ready, I was ready to find a job. I took two days off just to be with my family, and then I started to apply.” After four days of sending out applications, he received a message on LinkedIn asking for his resume. And just like that, only a week after graduating from Lighthouse, Fedor received a job offer.

Fedor’s currently working at a freight logistics company, facilitating the logistics of transport truck networks. He works on the software that facilitates connections between the trucks and the head office, over a variety of platforms including mobile applications.

In the long-term, Fedor wants to secure a career as a software developer, specifically in iOS development. First, though, he needs to keep putting effort into the life-long learning journey of being a developer, and study a bit more about iOS development. He expresses a desire to keep growing as a software developer, first and foremost.

When Advising Other Aspiring Bootcamp Students

When speaking with people interested in enrolling in bootcamp, Fedor emphasizes that mostly what they’re looking for is validation. “Most of them are afraid of not being good enough, so I just tell them my story. If you set a goal, you can reach it. It’s hard, and you have to spend a lot of time, but it’s possible.” Fedor talks about going through bootcamp while at the same time attending to his two-year old child, who was very curious and sometimes disrupted Fedor’s workflow. But still, with his goal in mind, he was able to succeed through bootcamp and land a job.

Want to connect with Fedor to learn more about his experiences in bootcamp?

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