So, yesterday, I graduated. I now have my very own dog tags with my name on it. I am “officially” a web developer. I will try to not spoil it too much for the people still in the program, but I do have to talk about this day.

If I had to sum that day up in one word, I’ld say : ‘Tears’.

The day started with the usual friday group checkins. What came out of that were that other cohorts were excited for everything new (every cohort is getting to the next phase on monday, DBC is moving, a new cohort is coming too…), and unhappy about us moving out. But then, like we told them again and again, we are not going anywhere.

After that, we presented our projects. A lot of clapping, a lot of laughing, and being impressed by every one of them. Also, for some reason, Rao discovered that I existed that very day, apparently. He asked me what was that necklace that I am wearing… But then I have been wearing that every single day for 3 years now… But that’s fine, I still love him !

Then, we came back to coding… psych, we did not write a single line that day. We ate these things DBC had ordered for us (COOKIES!), and then I took a huge nap.

I got waken up when Steven, one of our teachers, was about to speak about a nice life lesson he got some time ago. I won’t tell you the whole story but I will just sum it up with :
The day you start resenting everything about where you are, what you do, what you life looks like… Take a step back. Cash in on some money you have, and get out. Physically, mentally, it does not matter, just get out. I think this is a great advice that sometimes people just don’t follow. I got stuck in France and ended up needing friends and family to pull me out because I had not plan any kind of exit strategy… Don’t be me!

After that, we went to the park, and without telling you much about it, let’s just say we had the chance to say what we thought about people. And I just wanted to say, from the bottom of my heart, that I hate you, banana slugs, so much for the amount of tears you made me cry! ;)

Let me give you a quick example of things I heard :

• “Quentin, if I explained how much I like you in a sentence right now… That would mean I have not spent the 9 last weeks with you and did not know you.”
• “Thanks to you, becoming a better person seems so easy…”
• “I love your scarf”

There were plenty of others, these are just the 3 ones that came to my mind right now, you probably get the tone anyway.

After that, we went back, and graduated. We were welcomed with that High-Five tunnel that greeted us the very first day, then they gave us our dog tags,… and we partied until 2 in the morning!

I spent almost all of my night trying to tell people how much I love them and how grateful I am that I met them. These 9 weeks were such an adventure…

The end… ?

Now, I am out, but what I feel is that the training ended, now it’s time for the big game. I am never leaving these people, I will haunt them forever, at least just to thank them for how good they made me feel.

And if I end up making them happy one day in their lives, I will consider myself happy. And to all the DBC Staff, all the alumnus, all the current students, my cohort and the others, I am talking about all of you. You are SO going to regret making me feel that good ;)