The Truth About How I Learned to Code in 6 Months And Got Into Google

what's up everybody how's it going a little over a year ago i posted a youtube video titled how i learned to code in six months and got into google that was one of the first youtube videos that really took off for me it got a lot of views it recently crossed a million views and ever since i posted that video i've gotten a lot of questions a lot of comments asking me what exactly contributed to my learning to code so quickly and to my getting into google because what i did in that video was effectively just summarize the six months during which i learned how to code and the six months that led to my getting into google but i didn't really share more details or the secret sauce so to speak that allowed me to do those things and so in this video i want to share the truth about how i learned to code in just six months and got into google now i realized that the title of this video the truth sounds a little bit dramatic it almost sounds like i lied to you or like i'm hiding something and the truth is pun perhaps intended that no i'm not lying to you i'm not hiding anything but i do want to share with you or rather highlight the four factors that i think really contributed to my learning how to code so quickly and getting into google and these four factors are luck volume desire and genetics luck volume desire genetics so without further ado let's jump into them we'll start with luck luck is an interesting one because there are some people in the world often people who've achieved some level of success who really like to completely disregard the role that luck played in their achieving that level of success in other words you'll have a lot of successful people who will say luck played no role in my achieving what i achieved i did it all by myself there was no luck involved it was all up to me and then you've got other people these are typically the people who don't necessarily have that level of success who will say that the people who do have the success only got it because they were lucky oh this person found a successful company they just got lucky with their idea or this person has a really good job but they just got lucky because some recruiter contacted them directly or maybe they got an easy interview these people will often say that luck plays a huge role in any achievement basically and ultimately the truth lies somewhere in the middle in other words yes luck is definitely involved and i think that it's incorrect for people who have some level of success to think that luck played no role in it for example if you take me and my journey to learning how to code and getting into google i got lucky because i decided to attend a coding bootcamp at a time when coding bootcamps were pretty established they were no longer viewed as this super sketch kind of institution but at the same time they weren't super saturated i was also at a good time in my life right out of college didn't really have to take too many risks i also got lucky with the fact that a google recruiter answered my cold email so i certainly got lucky but at the same time i'd like to think that i also created my own luck i also put myself in a position to be more lucky for example imagine two people who both want to get into google since we're talking about google here and one of them does the other doesn't and the reason the one didn't get into google is because they simply never got an interview you might say that the person who did get into google got lucky because they got an interview because the recruiter that they contacted responded to them whereas the first one the recruiter didn't respond to them but if you take a closer look you might see that the person who didn't get into google only contacted two google recruiters whereas the person who did get into google contacted seven google recruiters and the seventh one is the one who answered them the point that i'm trying to illustrate here is that yes there is some level of luck involved in this scenario for the person who got into google but is it only luck or did that person kind of create their luck or expand the potential for them to become lucky by contacting more google recruiters by putting more effort i'd like to think that that's the case so for me yes i certainly had some level of luck but i also really sought to create my own luck so the point that i'm trying to make here is that yes luck is involved in many aspects of life but don't attribute every success in life to just luck realize that you can create your own look you can put yourself in positions where you're going to be more likely to be lucky and that is how you can achieve some level of success now the second factor that i mentioned earlier is volume and what i mean by volume is basically the sheer volume or amount of work that someone puts in to an endeavor at the end of the day i am a firm believer that whatever you put into something you get out of it so for example if you want to learn how to code very quickly in a short period of time like six months or even three months then you have to put in a lot of time learning how to code if you put in a lot of time learning out of code in that short period of time you will learn how to code very fast if you don't put in a lot of time you will not learn as fast so i think back to when i was doing my coding bootcamp i kid you not and i said this in my original video that i was living and breathing coding i would do coding or coding related things every single day for basically almost all hours of the day minus you know normal human things like bathroom eating or you know sleeping and maybe i was still going to the gym to keep my sanity but otherwise i was just doing coding related things i remember i would code in the train on my way to the coding bootcamp i would code all day long at the coding bootcamp i would stay after hours i would stay really late at the coding bootcamp doing projects looking up technologies or algorithms that i was interested in doing a little bit of practice problems for coding interviews and algorithms and then when i would take the train back home at like midnight or 1am i would still be coding in the train same thing for when i launched my company algo expert and was running it while working a full-time job at google or at facebook by the way if you want to get into google and facebook and you're preparing for your coding interviews or systems design interviews check out my company i'll go expert go to algoexpert.io and use a promo code clem clem for discount on the platform but so when i was running algoexpert as basically a second job along with my full-time main jobs at google and facebook i was basically working on these two things 24 7. obviously not 24 7 again sleep eating yadda yadda but yes i was putting in a ton of hours day in day out nights weekends mornings or the latest video that i posted on youtube where i chatted with david who's a really good competitive programmer and a software engineer at facebook in that q a video with him i asked him how much do you practice how much time did you put in to competitive programming in order to get as good as you are and he said that when he was in college he was putting in 40 plus hours a week just doing competitive programming that is basically a full-time job spent on competitive programming because he wanted to get really good at competitive programming so the point is the more volume you put into something the more you will get out of that something and that is exactly what i did during those six months when i learned how to code and then got into google now putting this much volume of work into something is not easy it requires a lot of passion a lot of motivation a lot of sacrifice and what that boils down to is desire which is my third factor that i mentioned earlier you have to have a burning desire i'm being a little bit overly dramatic here but seriously you have to have a burning desire within yourself a sort of self-motivation to put in the work to accomplish or to reach the goal that you want to reach so for me with the topic of this video i really really really really really really really really did i mentioned really wanted to learn how to code and then i wanted to get a software engineering job at a company that i was really happy with and so by having this desire by having this big self-motivation i was willing to put in that volume of work i was willing to make those sacrifices that you need to make if you want to put in that volume of work now here what i want to emphasize is that not everybody has that same desire not everybody has that same sort of self-motivation and that's okay that is okay the important thing is that you just have to realize whether or not you have it you have to really ask yourself what it is that you want in life or at a period of time in your life and to ask yourself are you going to be happy doing the things like putting in the amount of work to get those things are gonna be happy doing that are you gonna be happy with the opportunity cost of doing that for me the answer was a resounding yes and has been a resounding yes for other endeavors that i've undertaken like algo expert or this youtube channel but you have to answer that question and depending on your answer to that question you might be willing to put in even more work or perhaps a little bit less work which doesn't mean that you can't achieve your goals or achieve some level of success no you certainly can but it might take a little bit longer or it might be a little bit harder and again that is okay if you are okay with that you have to ask yourself what it is that you value in life what it is that you want in what time frame etc for me i wanted to learn how to code in six months i wanted to go from never having written a line of code in my life to employable as a software engineer especially at a company like google in six months in order to do that and with the desire that i had i figured i have to put in 14 hour days of coding or at least software engineering related stuff figure out if you have the desire to accomplish what you want to accomplish and in the given time frame that you want to accomplish it in and if you do you'll be willing to put in the appropriate volume of work the fourth and final factor that i mentioned before is genetics and what i mean by genetics is that ultimately for everything in life genetics this intangible thing that you can't really control it's something that you are born with play a big role this is especially obvious when you talk about athletic ability so for example if you take the best athlete in a given sport or a really good athlete in a given sport let's say i don't know lebron james in basketball i'm not a big basketball fan but hopefully you know who lebron james is most people will not be lebron james most people will not be able to accomplish even a fraction of what lebron james is able to accomplish in basketball and the reason for that is in large part genetic ability put aside all the work all the luck all the desire that lebron james has or has had in basketball putting aside all that there is a genetic factor lebron james is genetically gifted for basketball and really really good at basketball and if i said that i wanted to play in the nba i wanted to be as good as lebron james i had the desire to be as good as lebron james i wanted to put in the work i really sought to increase my luck in the basketball field even if i did all of those things and really put in the work and all that i would never ever ever reach the lebron james status in basketball especially if i started now at my age but even if i started when i was two years old why because genetics i did not win the genetic lottery when it comes to basketball ability so what am i trying to get at with this well i'm trying to say that basically for any endeavor including things like learning how to code learning how to code super quickly getting into a company like google there is some genetic factor in other words you probably need to have some level of you know cognitive ability be relatively smart relatively capable but the good news is that unlike let's say being lebron james or being the best athlete in the world at a given sport to learn how to code even in a short period of time and to get into a company like google you do not need to be the best in the world you do not need to be a genius sure you need some level of cognitive ability like i said some level of being smart and competent but it's not a super super high bar am i genetically pretty smart hopefully i'd like to think so and perhaps that helped me a lot in my journey but ultimately i am no genius and the the main thing that i want to leave you with this point is that this is something that you can't really control you can control the other things you can control your desire or especially the volume of work that you're willing to put into something but you can't control your genetics so try not to worry about them too much and try not to compare yourself too much to other people who might not be comparable to you in a specific domain so ultimately to summarize this entire video the four factors that i really think are the main reasons that i was able to learn to code so quickly and to get into google are number one that i have a foundation of decent genetics in other words i am decently smart and capable to learn how to code pretty quickly it comes pretty naturally to me i'm generally decently smart i'd like to think so then i had this extreme desire to learn how to code in a very short period of time having this desire made me very willing to put in a huge amount of work a huge volume of work during that short period of time and i was very willing to make the sacrifices needed to put that amount of work into it and finally i got a little bit lucky but i also sought to create my own luck and that is the truth of how i learned how to code in six months and got into google with that i hope that you found this video informative insightful motivational interesting fun entertaining whatever it is if you did don't forget to smash the like button subscribe to the channel if you haven't already do it right now pause the video subscribe well i pause the video until i finish my sentence but as soon as i say pause subscribe pause do you pause do you subscribe okay great and follow me on linkedin and twitter if you enjoy short form written content follow me on instagram if you like pictures and otherwise i will see you in the next video

Channel: Clément Mihailescu

Views: 67,922

Keywords: learn to code, learn to code for beginners, how to learn to code, coding bootcamp, how I learned to code, how I learned to code for google, how to learn to code fast, how to get into google, software engineer at google, coding bootcamp to google, coding bootcamp experience, are coding bootcamps worth it, should i learn to code, should i do a coding bootcamp, how i learned to code in 6 months, how I got into google, google in 6 months, clement google, the truth about clement

Id: P8qxIAmzFEg

Length: 14min 44sec (884 seconds)

Published: Fri Sep 25 2020