Update to my blog: Web Development – the greatest gift of the year

Hello world! It’s been a little over a year since my last update here. Time flies! A lot has changed since last and I think now’s a great time to start up this website again. I will post about these things in more detail at another time, but here are the hot-takes:

  • Shortly after my last post, I discovered the wonders of User Experience (UX), which set in motion a whole wave of new learnings.
  • The last few months of 2021 were consumed with this new world of information. I found that was most fond of Information Architecture (IA) and Interaction Design (IxD).
  • January 2022, I discovered that I should know some things about front end development while deepening my UX knowledge. I was nervous but ready to learn about HTML and CSS
  • April 2022, I was well into the UX learning path, but was beginning to tilt more and more towards HTML and CSS as I was curious for more. I completed a LinkedIn Learning Path for Interaction Design towards the end of this month. At this point I began making a fast shift towards front end Development, however. I had found a few jobs involving software development at my current place of employment that I was very interested in. I began using these as templates for further skills to learn.
  • August 2022, the past 4 months were fully sent into Front End development. I hadn’t realized this before, but I had used HTML and CSS randomly over the years for MySpace and other small online projects. Being young, I didn’t really understand much of what I was doing then. I had loved it but it fell by the wayside. These new learnings had renewed my passion at a deeper level. By this point I had completed LinkedIn Learning Paths for Front end Development and JavaScript Development. I had been watching many YouTube channels for software development. I realized that I needed things to display and better document my learnings: Projects! I also thought it would be a good time to brush up on my Python and get a GitHub started. I was also beginning to know just how much I didn’t know.
  • LinkedInLearningCertificateBecomeAFrontEndDeveloperLinkedInLearningCertificateBecomeAJavaScriptDeveloper
  • September 2022, I pushed a basic note taking app to my GitHub and started working on the new FreeCodeCamp Responsive Web Design course because I had heard that it was project based and I needed some solid projects.
  • October 2022, I feel like I’m nearing a job soon. I’m beginning to feel capable in my knowledge of HTML, CSS, vanilla JavaScript, and being able to research about things I don’t know. I finished the Responsive Web Design course and now have some solid projects. I also started on the JavaScript Data Structures and Algorithms FreeCodeCamp class. I’ve read that understanding Data Structures and Algorithms are essential basics to understand for development.
  • FreeCodeCampResponsiveWebDesignCertificate
  • Early November 2022 – 11/10 (today), I’ve been gearing up for the November release at work. It’s the first time I’ll be working the release and I’m excited. The first day was today and it was exciting. I’m excited to continue release work next week. Once release is finished I will be reaching out to our recruiters and hopefully be transitioning to front end/API development at the cusp of the new year.

There are certainly pages I could write about the things I’ve learned this last year. I feel like the amount of things I’ve learned have exponentially grown over these past three years of professional work, with this year being the most. I plan to write in more detail about my learning on these topics individually, but thought now was a great time for a life update.

Signing off – Dylan

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