Slow Down to Speed Up: Teacher-Turned-Developer Chris on Successful Adult Learning and Landing his Dream Role

The Scrimba Podcast

Meet Chris Webster 🇬🇧! Chris is a full-stack developer based in Reading. In a past life, he taught Mandarin to both children and adults and obtained a master's degree in education. If you're guessing that this episode is about pedagogy, maintaining your mindset, and learning hacks, you're on the right track.

When Chris decided to switch careers, he enrolled in a premium London boot camp. Was it worth the money? Or the time? In this episode, Chris lays out the differences between a boot camp and learning to code by yourself online. He ended up on Scrimba afterward—sometimes even while at work at his first coding job—which helped him land his dream job. But that wasn't the only thing! It's the perseverance, strategies for successful adult learning, and knowing what to look for in the myriad of teaching methods available to us that paved Chris's path to success. In this podcast, you'll learn all about them!

🔗 Connect with Chris

• 👨‍💼 Linkedin

⏰ Timestamps

• How Chris discovered computers (but became a teacher and only later took up coding) (01:09)
• Was changing careers an easy decision? (03:57)
• What do bootcamps promise, and do they deliver? (06:32)
• How did Chris structure his learning? (06:46)
• Was Chris happy with what he got out of the bootcamp? (08:36)
• Did the marketing of the bootcamp match the actual offering? (10:41)
• Midroll with Jan the Producer: Tweet about us! (12:31)
• The appeal of a bootcamp: the path + the community (13:27)
• How Chris discovered Scrimba (14:34)
• The problem with many teachers nowadays (17:40)
• Chris's Number One Learning Hack (19:20)
• Don't keep hammering the problem (23:18)
• The system for problem-solving (25:52)
• The stigma of (not) working hard enough (27:18)
• Pomodoro technique vs being in the zone: there's a right time for both (29:30)
• How Chris found his first job (31:34)
• What's it like working for a consultancy (32:38)
• How Chris landed his dream job as his second job (34:33)
• Chris's LinkedIn strategy (36:37)
• Just be enthusiastic! (37:49)
• Chris's message to a recruiter on LinkedIn (38:35)

🧰 Resources Mentioned

• Learn React for Free!
• Book: Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman
• Book: How to Solve It by George Polya

⭐️ Leave a Review

If you enjoyed this episode, please leave a 5-star review here and tell us who you want to see on the next podcast.
You can also Tweet Alex from Scrimba at @bookercodes and tell them what lessons you learned from the episode so that he can thank you personally for tuning in 🙏 Or tell Jan he's butchered your name here.