You’re starting your job search — congratulations! As the elation of finishing your program wears off, your mind inevitably turns towards the technical interview. The mere thought of this can feel like you’re looking up at a mountain. However, I’m here to help! I have identified 15 key questions that will help you ace the verbal portion of the interview.

1. What is React?

• React is a front end framework that’s compatible with the JavaScript library for building web and mobile applications.
• It was developed by Facebook in 2011.
• It allows developers to build reusable UI components and has support of a significant portion of the open source community. …

In React, routing is the ability to move between different parts of an application when a user enters a URL and triggers an event (e.g., clicking an element or submitting a form). To utilize routing, you will need to install the React-Router library. It is important to note that this library has three variants:

1. react-router: the core library
2. react-router-dom: a version of the core library meant to be used for web applications
3. react-router-native: a version of the core library meant to be used with react native for the development of Android and iOS applications

Most often, there is no need to install the core library. Since I have been focusing on web development in Flatiron School’s Software Engineering Bootcamp, I will choose to explore react-router-dom. This library can be installed by running npm install — save react-router-dom in the project directory. …

After learning JavaScript in Flatiron School’s Software Engineering Bootcamp, the word “fetch” has taken on an entirely different meaning; it’s no longer solely associated with Mean Girls or playing with my dog. Now I think of it in terms of requesting resources from an API in the browser. We use fetch to retrieve data from, as well as send data to, a server using familiar HTTP methods (i.e., GET, POST, PATCH, and DELETE). Fetch allows us to make requests without slowing down our application, thus maintaining a positive user experience. Fetch does this by functioning asynchronously (via a technique called AJAX — Asynchronous, JavaScript, and XML). AJAX allows us to request data and update the DOM without refreshing the entire webpage. …

Transitioning into Module 2 of Flatiron School’s Software Engineering bootcamp signifies that you’ve accomplished something quite significant; in 3 short weeks (or long, depending on who you ask), you’ve mastered the following concepts:

• Ruby: An object oriented language.
• Objects: Bundles of data (properties & attributes) that we can perform behaviors on via methods.
• Domain Modeling: Object relationships / building associations between objects in code.
• Structured Query Language (SQL): A language specifically built to communicate with the database.
• Object Relational Mapping (ORM): Querying the database, grabbing information, mapping it to a Ruby object (e.g., …

When you start a software engineering bootcamp, it may feel like time is fleeting; the pressure to perform and actualize your programming aspirations can be intense. Indeed, some of this stress is warranted — after all you are learning entire languages in a 3 week span that would normally take other students months over the course of multiple semesters to complete. *The budding developer inside of me is extremely happy with this efficiency.* However, you can avoid feeling overwhelmed in this process by implementing tactics to best assist and, in turn, accelerate your learning.

One of the most important tactics is testing! You will want to go into the bootcamp knowing how to test and test really well so you can manipulate your code (there are many solutions to a single problem; trying out multiple solutions will cement course concepts), read errors (believe it or not, errors are our friends), and understand what works, what doesn’t, and why. …