Meet Nico Hernandez, 2022 Lighthouse Lab Prize Recipient

As the 2022 recipient of the Lighthouse Lab prize, Interactive Arts and Technology 4^th year student Nico Hernandez completed a web development Bootcamp in December 2022. Today, he is using his new skills, finishing his last semester at SFU, and ready to start his career. Hernandez applied for the Lighthouse Labs Prize, which offers a free spot to Faculty of Communication, Art and Technology students in the Lab’s intensive web-development Bootcamp. His goal was to gain confidence in developing fully functioning web applications from the ground up. 

Hernandez graduates from SFU this spring and plans to connect with Lighthouse Labs and their alumni career services program to begin his search for his dream web developer job.

Read about his experience below and connect with Nico Hernandez on LinkedIn.

What were your goals going into the Lighthouse Labs program?

I’ve always had a keen interest in web development, and my main goal was to build my confidence in developing a fully functioning web application from the ground up. I’m delighted to say that I have accomplished this objective through the web development program, as I have now completed several full-stack applications. They can be found here: https://github.com/nicohsfu/

How did Lighthouse labs support you develop your skills?

In addition to the daily live lectures and learning modules, the most crucial part of reaching my goals were Lighthouse Labs’ on-call mentors who were available for assistance with the click of a button. Being able to connect with an experienced web developer via a video conference is a crucial and valuable aspect of the bootcamp, as one would be able to learn about best practices and industry standards from a professional who is working in the field. 

Tell me about your experience in the Lighthouse Labs Bootcamp?

The first two weeks were a bit overwhelming, as I was still getting comfortable with the fast-paced, bootcamp-style of learning. However, once I settled in it became part of my daily routine, and I developed conducive study habits that helped me thrive in an intense workload environment. From the third week onwards, I found myself in a groove where I would start my day by studying previous modules before the daily lecture, followed by being engaged in the lecture itself, and then spending the rest of the day completing the daily modules while meaningfully collaborating with my fellow cohort-mates. Thankfully, Lighthouse Labs also has “Success Coordinators” who supported us during the whole program, consistently checking in with us to see how things were going.

Do you have a favorite memory or moment of the bootcamp?

My favorite memories would be the camaraderie I’ve developed among my cohort-mates from the Sept. 19, 2022, cohort, for instance during the two demo days when people from the cohort were encouraging one another as we presented our applications in front of hundreds of people. We’ve worked on projects together and we’ve had great fun off-hours as well, mostly through our group-chat conversations and playing video games after finishing our work for the day. I will always cherish those memories, as it certainly made the bootcamp more enjoyable!

About the Lighthouse Labs Prize

Established in 2014 with a generous gift from Lighthouse Labs. This annual prize provides a space in to one FCAT student each year in the school’s specialized Web Development Bootcamp. Valued at $14,000, the prize recognizes promising, creative students from any area of FCAT who have a demonstrated interest in web development.

About Lighthouse Labs

Lighthouse Labs is a Vancouver-based coding school where students learn full-stack web development through immersive, fast-paced, bootcamp-style courses. The Web Development Bootcamp takes students through the fundamentals of source control using Git, HTML, CSS and stylesheet preprocessors, Ruby on Rails framework, Javascript and the jQuery framework as well as Node.js. As part of the course, students contribute to open-source projects and build their own apps under the supervision of a team of industry experts. The course is ideal for anyone looking to enter the startup community or build their own web applications.