Weston Ludeke

Launch School Core Curriculum Review: The Slow Path Towards Mastery of Software Engineering

Published in code.

“Mastery is not a function of genius or talent. It is a function of time and intense focus applied to a particular field of knowledge” -Robert Greene, Mastery After three and a half years of studying part-time while working at my day job on the support team at Streak, I finally completed Launch School’s core […]

Don’t Learn a Programming Language. Learn Software Engineering

Published in code.

Aspiring programmers who are looking to eventually build a career as a Software Engineer frequently ask which programming language they should select to learn (Ruby? Javascript? Python?). They often get lost in the weeds, endlessly debating minutiae about which language is best to begin their learn-to-code journey.  Noobs who’ve never previously written a single line […]

My time at Launch School (so far)

Published in code.

In January 2020, I embarked on a journey with Launch School to pursue my dream of becoming a Software Engineer. Three years later, as I near the end of the program (I’m currently in the final course as of March ‘23), I can confidently say that it has been one of the most fulfilling and […]

From Zero to Advanced: How I Drastically Improved My Spanish Listening Skills After Only 100 Hours

Published in languages.

After endless hours of studying Spanish over the past several years, I was frustrated in late 2020 that I could still barely understand anyone when they would speak to me in the language. I had to constantly ask them to repeat themselves and conversations were very painful and slow. When different language institutes give exams […]

Not Yet

Published in code.

“If you aren’t getting rejected on a daily basis, your goals aren’t ambitious enough” -Chris Dixon, partner at Andreessen Horowitz and serial entrepreneur Welp, it happened. I crashed and burned on a Launch School assessment and I received my first “Not Yet” score, specifically on the RB129 interview assessment. For context, Launch School, very smartly […]

2020 Recap

Published in misc.

2020 has finally come to an end. It was a long, stressful year, but I did my best to keep my head down to keep myself busy and productive. It wasn’t easy, and I wasn’t always able to ignore the insane events going on in the outside world, but I still managed to have a […]

Preparing for my first live coding assessment: Launch School’s RB109 Interview

Published in code.

In my previous blog post, I wrote about my experience taking the first Launch School assessment, which is the written assessment for the Launch School RB109 course.  The second of the two RB109 assessments is a live coding interview. During the assessment, the student is given two problems and is required to solve the problems […]

Overcoming test anxiety to pass Launch School’s RB109 written assessment

Published in code.

As I wrapped up studying for the first Launch School course, RB101, in mid-July 2020, I then began studying for the written assessment for that first course. In this article, I’ll share the tips I used to pass the written exam. Your mileage in the course may vary, but the tips below are what worked […]

Tips for Working From Home

Published in misc.

It’s been five years since I’ve worked in an office on a regular basis. Working remotely has been a huge productivity boost for my life, but it requires a certain level of discipline to pull it off successfully. 98% of the time I’m working from my apartment and there are some unique challenges to working […]

Mid-2020 Progress Update

Published in misc.

The first six months of 2020 are now completed and in this post, I’m going to write about the progress I’ve made so far in reaching my goals of mastering computer programming and the Spanish language. Leveling-Up My Programming Skills At the beginning of January 2020, I began the first course of the Launch School […]

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