CodeNewbie Community 🌱

Cover image for A Reflection on my "Start-Coding" Journey and the Community
Abaraoha David
Abaraoha David

Posted on

A Reflection on my "Start-Coding" Journey and the Community

Name: David Abaraoha

Title: He/Him, Student

#CNC2022 Cohort: Start Coding

Introduction

At the beginning of this year, I decided to make a commitment to improve myself and skill up properly. Then I found CodeNewbie's "start coding" challenge while reading a post on dev.to, I registered and committed to complete it and I'm here to share that journey with you.

Mission 1

Mission 1 assignment was about the Roles in the Tech space we can choose from, and setting realistic goals around our learning process.

Having a structured write up and great reflection questions was a great starting point in understanding what I should be doing and how to gear my goals and actualize them.

What are your coding goals?
My Goals are:

  1. To successfully complete this challenge.
  2. To build my own fully functional website/App
  3. To be efficient enough to teach others

What does successful learning look like to you?
My ability to understand and remember the topics and lessons thought and applying them.

How do you plan to measure your success?
When I'm able to complete this challenge.

Do you have any particular timeline/deadline for learning to code?
Timeline, Yes!
Deadline, No i don't.
I believe coding is a life long learning process as long as new things are developed daily.

Mission 2

Mission 2 assignment was about deciding on the languages and frameworks that will be used to archive the goals that were set in Mission 1

I wanted to go into web dev/frontend development so Javascript and React was a choice I was happy to make (+ I was already looking into it before now)

I've decided to learn Javascript and also look into the Bootstrap and React frameworks (to decide which I'll like better) because it aligns with my goal of going into Web Development.

Mission 3

Mission 3, I got to look into the "How" I'll be learning to code, building my curriculum and finding what's best for me in the long run.

Creating a plan was and would be essential to my growth, so I had to carefully figure out what was needed.

I'll be leaning on:

  • YouTube Tutorials
  • DEV blogs
  • Freecode Camp forums
  • Twitter too! (I was surprised at the help one could get from the community there, so I'll be on there too)

I can't afford any paid courses for now. So I'll stick with the free resources I can lay my hands on.

Why I'm choosing these aside the free part... I have a limited budget and these are what I can afford.

I'll love to have and also be an accountablity partner, so if you'll be learning CSS, Javascript, REACT. You can reach out to me. ✌️

Missions 4 & 5

Mission 4 was about putting the curriculum into work and blocking out the hours to code and to make sure the curriculum fits properly

My first coding session was a 6/10 (I couldn't complete the 4hrs) but I'm constantly improving.

  1. My coding session for mission 4 would have a score of 6 out of 10. It was productive but i couldn't complete the 4hrs. 😞
  2. I am working on creating a website using HTML, CSS & JavaScript and deploying it to Netlify using Brad Traversy's tutorial(YouTube). CSS for now is what I've been finding a little hard to grasp. but I'm getting the hang of it.

I improved on my number of hours

  1. Yes my sessions are still aligned with my goals. I've been blocking off at least 2hrs and it's been good. (I do more though)

  2. As for adjustments... I would want to make that 2hrs daily, but I can't, cus' I have a PC issue which limits the number of hours I spend. So I'm working towards solving that. 💪🏽

All together this challenge has made me more consistent than I would have imagined.🙏🏽

I couldn't finish the code along with Brad. But I did something for this reflection post

GitHub logo iamdavidjames / Error-pages

A list of error pages created by me to improve my HTML/CSS skills

Error-pages

A list of error pages created by me to improve my HTML/CSS skills




Final Reflections on #CNC2022's "Start Coding" Challenge

This challenge is one of the best things that have happened to me this year so far. Why? I had the opportunity to plan and follow through on the tasks given and also the community I got when i joined the challenge. The hardest part for me was following through but I did anyway and it was fun. I'll highly recommend this challenge to any newbie or anyone who'll like to rekindle their interest in coding. "Learning in the public space is the best thing you can do for yourself as a self-thought developer"

What's Next

I've joined a local mentorship program to increase my knowledge and I'll like to join another coding challenge, maybe the "code more" challenge... Maybe I don't know yet.
Thank you #CNC2022

Top comments (0)