Why not?

Many people in the development world are claiming that the Context API in React eliminates the need for the use of Redux. Both of these tools provide a solution for the issue of unidirectional flow of state, but with Redux you have to use a separate library and go outside the confines of React to find the solution. I've worked with context already when doing the color palettes final project app in Colt Steele's "The Modern React Bootcamp," and now after the introduction of Redux, I'm finding them to be very similar in a lot of ways. These are incredibly complex issues, and typically you're dealing with an incredibly complex app when using these tools, so it is a lot to wrap my feeble brain around. As with the other courses, I'm trying not to get too hung up on the concepts that I'm fuzzy on and keep pressing through, because I know I will be revisiting these topics multiple times in other courses. The sections on Redux in this course are pretty comprehensive, so I think by the end of it, I should have a nice grasp of it.

I'm still working on my digital presence and trying to get involved in some communities. I've been using this Career Karma app, but it's really starting to get on my nerves. They are pushing everyone very hard towards bootcamps, and it just seems like these bootcamps are set up like a get-rich-quick scheme. They are promising people jobs, doing income-sharing-agreements where you pay a percentage of what you make for a period of time after you get a job, and there a just a bunch of gimmicks that come along with these bootcamps. It would make sense to find that Career Karma's sponsors are these very same bootcamps. There are so many resources online both in the open-source community or for very reasonable prices that can offer the same education that you would get at a bootcamp. They lack the structure that you would find at any school, so if you can;t motivate yourself to do the work, then you have no chance. Otherwise, if you're a driven individual, there's no reason you couldn't gain the same knowledge on your own, or even customize your curriculum to specifically meet your needs. The things I'm really missing out on are mentorship and job placement, but answers to these issues can be found online as well. I'm looking into finding a mentor and maybe even mentoring somebody just starting out myself to see if I can help them get going on the self-sufficient route instead of the bootcamp route.

Finding a job is proving to be the most difficult part of the entire journey. I really haven't started to actively apply yet, as my resume still needs to be fixed up and my portfolio site is crap(and possibly broken right now), but I've been looking for jobs since the start. The majority of the jobs that are listed for juniors ask that you have so many years of experience, which is just wrong for a junior job, meaning the company has no idea about dev jobs. A lot of the job listings are directly from recruiting agencies instead of from the actual employer, so I'm very weary of these as well. It seems like the best way to tackle this is to think outside of the box. I have a plan to create a list of potential employers and work through some strategies to get noticed by these companies. It will be a process, and I'm sure I won't get a response from the majority of them, but I think this could work if I present it correctly. For the most part, I think if I can keep putting myself out there and learning more and more, things will start happening for me that couldn't be predicted. I'm still in the very early stages of this journey, even though it feels like I've been grinding for an eternity. It wouldn't be tolerable if I didn't enjoy the grind.

Until tomorrow!