Ten Tips for Success in Online Coding Bootcamps for Neurodivergent Learners (Part 1 — ADHD & Executive Functioning)
Online coding bootcamps are gaining in popularity among learners and recognition and respect among potential employers. As an alternative or supplement to traditional degree-based learning, most online coding bootcamps specialize in one of a range of technical topics: Data Science/Analytics, Software Engineering, Web Development, just to name a few. These bootcamps are usually focused on learning job-ready skills, building a portfolio, and preparing for the interviewing and hiring process, and they’re often designed to be flexible options for learners who want to learn on their own schedule and in their own space.
As a result of this flexibility, these bootcamps are often simultaneously a perfect fit and pose extra challenges for learners with ADHD or other sources of Executive Functioning difficulty! Based on my own experience as a neurodivergent learner and data professional, my years as an instructor and mentor in various online bootcamps, and my studies in Landmark College’s Certificate in Learning Differences and Neurodiversity program, I’ve compiled a list of 10 tips for anyone with ADHD or other Executive Functioning challenges to make the most out of their online coding bootcamp experience.
1. Choose Your Environment Intentionally
First and foremost, this is going to mean reducing distractions in your immediate environment. Some of us need silence and others thrive in busier settings with a low hum of white noise, but nobody focuses well in an environment where they will be directly interrupted regularly. But also consider including some limited “designated distraction” activity in your environment to engage with during set-aside break times (more on this later).
For example, if you know you’ll be tempted to engage in something that is hard to pull away from during your breaks (like internet rabbit holes — guilty of that one!), it helps to get ahead of this tendency toward distraction and have some well-defined designated distraction activity that you engage in during breaks. This could be as simple as a book of puzzles or a quiet, well-mannered pet. The key is to have whatever you might need right at hand so that you’re not losing time mentally searching for things.
2. Use a Calendar. Look at it Every Day.
Depending on how your particular brain works, you may be most comfortable using an all-inclusive digital calendar app like Google Calendar, and if this works for you, it would be my recommendation. It’s much harder to lose something which you can access from any device connected to the internet, plus these digital calendars usually let you color-code the events which can help you see at a glance the difference between a doctor’s appointment and the time you’ve set aside specifically for studying. And yes, I also recommend setting aside specific blocks of time for studying.
Another benefit of digital calendar apps is that you can set them up to give you reminder notifications before each event. I like to have one at 10-minutes-before and one at 1-minute-before — the first gives me a heads up to start getting ready for the new event, and the second tells me it’s time to shift gears (so I don’t ever have to watch the clock). You may strongly prefer a paper-and-pen style of planner, or a combination of the two (such as one to look at and one to give you automated reminders) — the important thing is that you find what works for you and use consistently use some form of time tracking that doesn’t require you to constantly watch the clock or rely on your own internal sense of time.
3. Develop a Reliable and Consistent System for Note-Taking
This one can be a bit tricky given the subject matter. For many of us, handwriting notes can help us remember what we learned, but this isn’t always practical when what we are learning is highly technical and might require diagrams, screenshots, or even copy-pasted code snippets. Some of us are tempted to forego note-taking altogether, since it can feel too awkward to figure out how to structure written notes for coding lessons. Don’t do this. Hands-on coding practice is essential, but just as essential is the retention of terminology, concepts, and other types of learning which don’t immediately get reinforced in a coding project. This retention is aided considerably by good note-taking habits.
For tech note-taking, I recommend looking into a digital app which will sync across devices and allow you to easily save screenshots or code snippets, and to adjust formatting to make this easy to read later. It may help to jot down some terminology and key words by hand while listening to lecture videos, if you find this to be the easiest way to listen, but I still suggest putting these notes into some note-taking software like Evernote, Notability, or OneNote for longer term storage and easy reference. Again, it’s hard to lose (or spill coffee on) something which is stored in the cloud!
4. Review Your Notes. Make it a Habit.
Once you’ve established a note-taking system, my next recommendation is a highly underrated one: make a consistent habit of regularly reviewing your notes. The very best time to do so is within 24 hours of when you took them. This can be tricky if you’re studying around a full-time work schedule, but if you can, consider structuring your day so that you will have at least a small chunk of time at the end of the day to review the notes you took that day. The research shows that this will aid significantly in retention, which will ultimately save you time in the long run when it comes to preparing for interviews! In the context of coding, this may also mean reviewing code you have written that day to help you remember your thought process in writing it. (Good documentation will also help here, but that’s a topic for a whole different article!)
5. Plan Your Study Approach Based on the Material
This one is based on a study recommendation made for courses which contain a lot of reading material. This may or may not be the case for your online bootcamp — some like to include links to a lot of blog articles, and others are predominantly video lecture based. In any case, regardless of the format, it is helpful to assess each section of the program of study (each unit, or subunit) and evaluate the length/depth and relevance before diving in. Some bootcamps mark certain sections as “optional”, which can also aid with this process. The key is to understand that you might need to take a different approach with a series of twelve 10-minute “code-along” videos (lots of pausing, rewinding, time to get your own environment set up beforehand) compared with a 2-hour theoretical lecture on data structures. If you dive into each reading section or each video lecture with the same approach, you’re likely to spend too much time on things which aren’t as relevant and not enough attention on mastering the key skills of your new craft.
6. Take Breaks
I know that for many of us who are prone to distraction, it can feel counterintuitive to intentionally take breaks, but setting aside protected time during each day (where we are not pressuring ourselves to be studying) as well as scheduling regular (timed) short breaks into our longer study sessions is essential to keeping our focus long term and avoiding burnout. One time management strategy that works for some people is called the Pomodoro Technique. There is a lot already written on this strategy, so I won’t go into too much detail here, but the gist of it is to break up working (or study) sessions into 25-minute chunks with short breaks in between. Using a technique like this has the added benefit of building our time estimation skills, which can be useful in a career in tech.
7. Get to Know Yourself (and Your Writing and Coding Style)
You may not think of “writing” as being a common part of coding bootcamps, and maybe you’re right — but for the Data Analytics & Data Science programs that I mentor for, there are typically reports required for each project, and this is similar to the job setting, even if you’re not always required to write in a specific format. Even if your program and job don’t require any lengthy written assignments, this tip will still apply to how you write your code. My recommendation is to get to know how you prefer to write.
Are you a “drafter” or a “planner”? Do you find it easiest to get your ideas down on paper (or in the editor) by just starting to write, and then later worry about assigning structure and organization to your work? Or do you prefer to make a detailed outline or flowchart first (maybe defining and referencing helper functions without actually writing them yet) and then fill in the details as you go? Either of these styles can work just fine, but the key is to know what works best for you and not to try to adhere to recommendations geared towards the other writing/coding style.
8. Make Mindset Prep Part of Your Job Interview Prep
This one in particular is a tip that I would actually recommend to any career prep bootcamp student, not just neurodivergent learners, although it’s been my experience that ND learners (especially if they belong to more than one marginalized group) have an especially tough time building confidence for job interviews. We learn differently, we think differently, and often we communicate differently, and sometimes this can be recognized as the gift that it is (diversity of cognitive styles in the workplace is a good thing), but not everyone will “get” us. This is why it’s important to establish ahead of time, for ourselves, what value we know we bring to the table and to find ways to build that mindset and confidence before we go into an interview. That way, we are in a better place to handle rejection (a statistically inevitable part of all job searches, sorry to say!) and move right onto the next opportunity without taking it personally.
9. Actively Take Steps to Reduce Anxiety
Even if you’re not diagnosed with an anxiety disorder and don’t think you really experience “anxiety”, don’t skip this tip! These are recommendations which can help even if you don’t experience anything close to clinical anxiety. I’m going to do a bit of a “cheat” on this one and recommend you take a look at Dr. Michelle Bower’s article on Math Anxiety, particularly the bulleted suggestions at the end of the article. Dr. Bower is a professor of mathematics and developed these tips with students who experience math anxiety in mind, but I’ve actually used all five of these recommendations to my benefit across a wide range of subjects (and I love math!). If you do have any degree of math anxiety, especially if you’re going into a potentially math-heavy field like data analytics, my recommendation for this article goes double!
10. Leverage Technology!
We’ve already talked a bit in depth about calendar apps and note-taking apps, but this is one last recommendation to take advantage of the digital tools that are available to help you study and manage your time. Sometimes the choices can feel endless, and there is a real risk of getting bogged down exploring and trying too many new apps. My recommendation would be to identify at least some technological support for time-management (whether it’s as simple as some alarms set on your phone or as complex as a color-coded Google Calendar), some technology for note-taking, and some technology for managing assignments, projects, and deadlines (which may overlap with the first two). The tech world moves quickly and if you’re trying to break into it, your future self will thank you for establishing these good tech-supported habits now, before you find yourself juggling multiple projects and meetings at work and forgetting what was said on the call the minute you hang up the phone (been there…).
Whew! That was a lot to cover, and if you’re still here, that’s great! I hope that you’ve gained some ideas about how to approach online coding bootcamps as a neurodivergent learner, especially one with ADHD and/or other sources of executive functioning challenges. To be honest, as I studied and wrote up these recommendations, I think a lot of them could be beneficial for all bootcamp students, even though I wrote them with a specific group in mind. I hope you’ll stay tuned for Part 2 of this series, where I’ll have another whole set of tips for neurodivergent bootcamp students — this time with an emphasis on autistic learners.
