Hello World! I am a 30-Year-Old civil/construction engineer, learning to
code for the first time. I share my journey and learning here.
I was delighted after getting my first certification from freeCodeCamp, but I knew that this happiness like all the happiness in life, this too will fade away in a day or two if not earlier, So on that very day I get my certification, I took up Javascript.
Around the same time my friend and mentor, Jai, introduced me to Dev.to, He encouraged me to write my story here. At first, I was a bit apprehensive about writing a post here, I thought who would want to read a story of a code newbie here but I went for it anyway and opened up my heart in my post and posted a week ago. I didn’t expect that my post would get such a good reception. I would also urge you all to write about your journey, It will help a lot of people who are just starting or who are just a month or two behind you in learning. If you are making any mistake the more experienced devs can correct you and guide you & on the top of it, writing has tons of benefits. And yes to be able to communicate clearly is a very important skill for a coder.
I was posting my journey on twitter since my first day of coding, One of
my friends, Shreyans who is a Full Stack Javascript Developer, would like
my tweet once in a while, apparently, he has been following my tweets and
one day commented on one of my tweets, I was delighted to read his
comment, Nothing matches a genuine appreciation from a friend.
The following morning when I woke up, there was this notification about a
comment on Twitter. That was my first encounter with a troll on twitter.
As you move ahead in your journey you’ll begin seeing an ever-increasing
number of comments from people saying inflammatory and offensive things
but you shouldn’t let your journey effect from this because Trolls often
don’t believe a word they write but say it anyway just to piss off anyone
After finishing my first certification, I also publicly committed myself
to make a personal portfolio website in a month’s time because in all my
Responsive Web Design Projects I didn’t put much effort into the
presentation of the webpages and I focussed principally on understanding
the user stories and applying my learning to pass the tests. So I knew
that I could do better & make a more presentable website and a Personal
portfolio would serve both the purposes of applying your learning as well
as showcasing your projects to the world.
I found Javascript more difficult than HTML & CSS but my understanding of
the language improved as I spent more time on it. I also started to share
my code in my tweets using
carbon, I found this really effective
because you can sum up your learning of the day in one or more codes,
which help you revise your learning at the end of your coding.
I had also started listening to tech podcasts but finding the one which
was easier for a newbie to understand was a task but as they say “Those
who seek shall find”.
I found some excellent podcasts, out of them I really liked this one. In
this
podcast
, Abbey Rennemeyer reads out an article about a 56-year-old guy explaining
why learning to code would be the best decision for him even at this age
and he does give good reasoning. Like posts here on DEV, podcasts would
also make you feel that you are not alone in the journey and how other
people have achieved great things. You can learn from their journey, get
inspired & achieve your goals too.