My opinion on React.js training by O’Clock
I took a React.js training given by the O'Clock school from September to November 2021. So I'm going to explain why I wanted to do this training, why with O'Clock and what I thought of it.
Why a React.js training ?
I am a web developer since my retraining in 2018. Until last year, I mainly developed sites under WordPress, first as an employee and then as a freelancer since 2020.
During my search for new missions, I felt limited. First in terms of quantity of available missions. There are certainly many opportunities in creating WordPress sites (remember that 43% of sites work with WordPress) but there is also a lot of competition, which means that it is not so easy to find new customers.
I also felt limited in terms of mission content. When we look at WordPress missions, we mainly find showcase sites, maintenance or troubleshooting. Without denigrating this type of mission, we quickly fall into a certain form of routine. I would add that these are mostly short-term assignments, which means having to regularly look for new clients and this is clearly not the aspect that I prefer in freelancing.
So I decided to improve my skills by training on a front-end framework. Today, can we call ourselves a front-end developer without mastering one of the main frameworks (Angular, React or Vue)?
The world of web development is changing so fast that it is mandatory to continually train on new technologies. This is also one of the reasons that made me choose freelancing, it is the freedom to choose the technology on which I want to train and orient my career.
So I had to choose the framework on which to train. I then did some research and got some information, in particular by consulting the report Malt Tech Trends 2021 which takes stock of trends in the different technologies used for missions on the Malt freelancing platform.
It shows that Vue is currently less used than React and Angular but growing strongly. The most used is therefore React which is also growing while Angular seems to be on the decline. I will add that the learning curve for Angular seems steeper, at least initially, than for React and Vue. So I chose to focus on React.
Why not train yourself?
It is true that all the necessary knowledge is available for free on the web. With a good method and discipline, we can easily train ourself. That's what I did when I started my retraining and that's what allowed me to get my first job as a web developer.
And it is precisely because I acquired most of my knowledge on my own that I wanted to confront it with trainers and other learners. I wanted to be able to talk to other students and get feedback on my level and on the latest best practices from trainers. Having a more formal framework also allows for faster progress.
It was therefore necessary to make a choice again but for the training organization this time. There are a lot of them that offer training as a web developer with short courses between 3 and 6 months, but there are far fewer that offer developers who already have experience to train on a specific technology.
This is the case of O’Clock, which has specializations in React, API, Symfony and WordPress. In practice, these courses are offered to O'Clock students after 4 months of training on the basics of web development, but they are also directly accessible for people who already have experience.
Concretely, the training is based on the principle of remote courses in a virtual classroom. That is to say, we have the advantages of having a real live trainer who can see our code and answer our questions and also the advantages of being at home with cookies and chocolate spread at will ! With the rise of teleworking, I also think that knowing how to work in a remote team is now a real valuable skill.
My Opinion on O'Clock Training
In terms of the pace of the training, it was generally suitable even if sometimes a little slow for me, but you have to make sure that all the students follow. I take my hat off to the students who 4 months before this training had hardly ever coded, getting so many new concepts into a brain in such a short time is incredible!
Nothing to say about the trainer who was very competent and pedagogical, it was perfect. The days are divided into two parts: a “course” part live with the trainer and a “challenge” part in the evening which allows you to apply the concepts learned during the day.
The second month of the training is entirely devoted to the development of a team project by applying the Scrum method. In my case, it was a platform for exchanging skills between mentors and learners: Mentor Me. It is a very good scenario where the important thing is certainly as much collaborative work on a project as purely technical aspects.
After the training, O'Clock also allows its students to pass the Professional Title Web and Mobile Web Developer and the Opquast certification in "Quality control in Web project" which I was able to obtain with a score of 915 points out of 1000 attesting at an expert level.
In the end, no regrets for having done this training, it now remains to materialize by winning my first missions in React.