Evaluating the process

I've had a couple days without JavaScript, taking courses on the Chrome developer tools, website accessibility, and SEO, and it's given me a chance to think back on how I've gotten to this point. In 4 months, I've gone from knowing absolutely nothing about web development to being on the brink of landing my first job in this space. I don't know if I'll land that job tomorrow, next week, next month, or in half a year from now, but the time is coming. I've put a lot into getting here, and I still have a lot more to put in, but I think it's important to outline what I've done to this point and what I'm still missing. It's been a multi-pronged approach, which it has to be, on a low-budget with limited time available. I didn't have the option of leaving work for 3 or 4 months and attending a $10,000 bootcamp and I'm raising a daughter all in the middle of this. I've found energy I never knew I had that mainly comes from the passion I have for development.

I started this quest with a website called The Odin Project, which had some serious upsides and some serious downsides for me. With guidance from this curriculum, I learned HTML, CSS, and the beginnings of JavaScript, giving me the basis of knowledge I needed to understand where to go from there. I was using a Windows-based laptop at that point, and this site had me set up a virtual box running Ubuntu, which was integral to my early success. Then, they had me install vsCode, which I've become highly proficient with and is pretty much the industry standard for text editors. Within my first few days, I set up a Github account, which is probably singlehandedly the most important thing I've done, giving me a place to display my projects and progress. Without Github, employers would have no way of accessing your work, or it would at least make it incredibly difficult. After I realized I had hit a brick wall with The Odin Project, I took a course by Colt Steele on Udemy called "The Web Developer Bootcamp," which covered everything from HTML to NodeJS, and a lot of techs in between. This gave me a full understanding of the landscape and showed me where I needed to focus my efforts. This also started the beginning of cultivating my projects on Github. After this course, I spent some time on Youtube following tutorials on how to build different projects with just JavaScript, React, and Vue, without really understanding React or Vue. Regardless, it helped me build my projects up to where they are now, having about 25 or 30 fully functional and deployed sites up on Github. In this period, I built this blog, as well as my portfolio, which are 2 of my most valuable assets. After realizing I couldn't learn much more from building these projects, I tackled about 5 more long courses on Udemy, gaining a much fuller understanding of React and Vue, and adding more and more projects to my Github account. After completing these courses, I realized I still didn't fully understand JavaScript, so after some recommendations, I enrolled in Frontend Masters and have accelerated my knowledge on this subject and other frontend matters greatly in the matter of a week. As far as the learning, this brings me to my current state of pounding through this curriculum and soaking up as much JavaScript knowledge as I can.

This doesn't cover the issue of getting a job at all, though. For this, I've been working hard on networking, refining my resumé, and applying to about a million jobs. I've gone from launching my Twitter account sometime in August to now having 300 followers, which is really cool to me. I realized my LinkedIn networking was awful, so I've launched a campaign on this site to connect with as many currently employed developers as I possibly can, going from having a handful of connections to now having over 150 in the matter of a month. When I connect with someone, I start a conversation with them; most don't respond, but I've had some great conversations spawn from these interactions. About 2 months ago, I created a resumé specifically for web development with links to my Github account, blog, portfolio, and pertinent projects. It still needs some work, as does my portfolio, but it's a start. From here, I'll be studying hard, trying to figure out how to get to some Meetups, building up my Twitter and LinkedIn presence, writing a proper cover letter, applying to more jobs, rewriting my resumé again, rewriting my portfolio, and so much more. This is a long process that I'm trying to complete as fast as possible, but all I can do is put in the time every day and keep plugging away at it; I'm getting closer every day to that elusive first developer job.

Until tomorrow!