My Journey as a Self-Taught Web Developer in 2020

hello everybody my name is Anna and today I will be talking to you about my journey as a web developer so far in the mistakes mistakes I felt like a me and perhaps how you can benefit from learning from my mistakes and some possible solutions that I have for them [Music] first I'd like to start telling you a little bit about myself I don't have a tech a technical background at all I studied photography I never thought that I would enjoy coding or be interested in it because I always saw us something very technical and very intimidating however about a year ago I had a lot of free time in my hands and I wanted to create a schedule for myself and start studying something at home I started codecademy and it was very straightforward it wasn't intimidated at all by one through HTML pretty quickly I went through CSS pretty quickly and I started there what development path I just sent a little bit of time aside every day and started practicing a little by little until I've got to JavaScript and then I finished JavaScript and now I am learning react so the very first mistake that I feel like that I made in this journey I made codecademy the only place where I would learn from and get information from now that I step outside of codecademy I realized that codecademy really holds your hand the whole time which is great for a beginner it's great to start and not feel intimidated by code which can be a recent enough to stop you from doing it at some point and I didn't realize this when this happened it became my comfort zone it's not really a challenge it never makes you think if you ever get stuck there's a button it will give you the solution right down there and I know a lot of us won't look at the solution because a lot of us really really want to try and solve it for ourselves but at the end of the day it is a very beginner friendly site you don't learn to think like a programmer you don't learn the everyday struggles that you're going to go through your dog as a web developer if I could go back and do it again I would divide my time between doing code Academy and also solving algorithm problems outside of code Academy watching video tutorials and that brings me to the solution to this problem if you are currently doing this or if you are just getting started in this journey I suggest that you definitely I suggests the suggestion that you start with coding Academy again it's a great place to start to hold your hand they'll explain concepts that are somewhat hard to understand in very simple terms you don't feel intimidated you feel like you can do this you can learn I would suggest to about your time between doing code Academy and also more problems outside of code Academy code Wars I learned about this website last week it's a great place to solve algorithms I've also been watching a lot of YouTube videos traversing media has I believe two or three videos that are called JavaScript cardio so he'll go through the solutions to each one of those problems but he also has the file and getup that you can download and try to solve the algorithm the algorithms before you see the solution in his video so I definitely suggest doing that at the same time that you're learning to code and code Academy or free cooking the second mistake was letting fear stop me from doing things whenever I would encounter something that was too hard to understand whenever I thought of can I really do this across my mind I would stop coding I got to the point where I didn't code at all for three months and I really missed it but there was something within me that just didn't allow me to move forward and it was fear it's hard to recognize that because your brain wants to make those fears rational your your brain wants to rationalize why you can't do it or why it will take too long it would be too hard to get to where you want to be it's like when you work out your brain wants to give up before your body if you're running or if you're doing cardio your brain will get tired and wants you to stop before your body's even tired so it's the same thing you just have to fight that fear of not moving forward there are things that are going to be really hard to understand and install and get past but it's not impossible take a step back from things sometimes right from from some problems or sometimes when concepts aren't too hard to understand you have to take a step back let your brain breathe for a moment and then get back to it it's ok to take breaks it's normal to adopt yourself it's normal to to think if this is really for you or if you can really do this but don't let fear stop you from getting to your dreams you will never know what it's like or if you are actually capable unless you try point number three was people telling me that I wasn't able to do it and I don't mean like people that I actually know in my life because I happen to be very lucky in half people more very supportive in my life I watched a few YouTube videos that talk about why it's really hard for a woman to have a career in tech because it's really hard to balance your personal life and your family with your work life which kind of ties with the fear I was talking about earlier I personally not in tech at the moment I am trying to start a career as a web developer so I don't know this for a fact that I want to say that a career in tech it's very demanding and it's probably challenging to find a good work-life balance but that shouldn't stop you because you are not there yet these are these people's experiences and how they went through it and they think it's like for women to have a career detect it's not your life in your career in Texas yet allow yourself to get there first and then decide if that is how you feel about it and if that's the case then you will deal with it when you get there don't allow this thoughts of what if it's too hard what if I put in all this effort and then I don't enjoy it when I'm there you won't know that until you're there because a lot of this mistakes are just mental walls that I have to get past in order to be able to keep learning what the moment is something so hard that takes so long to learn because it's easy for my brain to create this excuses as to why I shouldn't keep going you have a path that you have set up for yourself right like I'm going to learn HTML I'm going to learn CSS I'm going to learn JavaScript and then I'm going to specialize in for example I specialize and want to specialize in react I am learning react so follow the path that you have traced for yourself just keep going and give yourself time give yourself patience but don't let yourself be stopped by fear if you have traced yourself this journey that you want to start stay true to your journey if they faithful to your journey and just keep going it's something that really helped me with motivation and its support was joining meetups there are tons of meet the moment there's tons of people that you can need that are also starting in this journey with you that perhaps already got a job and they can mentor you just going out there and spending a few hours with people that are in the same boat as you that are just struggling with it and trying to to become something it's very inspiring it makes you feel like you're not alone that other people also go through this it's also a good excuse to get out of the house because sometimes we're just studying you just spent a lot of time at home in front of the computer the fourth roadblock that I want to touch on is having obligations such as work or family at the same time that you have to study I do have a job I work at a restaurant the problem with sometimes studying all day and then having to work it's not how physically tired your but how mentally exhausted you can become to then having to get ready and go to work so I know that a lot of people have nine-to-five jobs and then they also study web development at home the suggestion that I would have for that is creating a schedule for yourself and sticking with it for example for me it works that I wake up at the same time every day it doesn't matter if I have to go to work as a matter if I don't have to go to work it basically I take it as if I'm going to work by 9:00 a.m. I am sitting in front of the computer Cody either working on my app or sulfon off an algorithm or even watching YouTube videos whatever it is I am a senator put on my computer study so this really helps you gain momentum it really helps you get into the groove of just creating a schedule for yourself and doing it every single day it just fits in your day better because now your brain is starting to get used to waking up every day at 7 or 8 by 9:00 you're studying 12 you're having lunch and you take a little break and then by 5:00 you have to go to work or if you work in the morning you know you come back home by 6:00 or 7:00 do give yourself an hour to unwind and take a shower eat whatever it is that you do and then by 8:00 to 10:00 p.m. or to 11 p.m. you study every single day just set time aside as if it was another responsibility another second job but first it takes a lot of willpower and commitment but after a few weeks your your body and your routine will get will start adjusting to this new schedule for yourself it really helps to practice coding every single day it stays fresh in your mind you can just pick up from where you left off yesterday or two days ago and not having to you know do a refresh because you haven't done it in a few weeks the fifth and last point I want to touch on is something that I do about everything that I tried to accomplish it's just wanting to get it over with wanted to get it done now that's not going to happen now you know if you're just starting it's probably gonna take a little bit because there it's just so much information to take in there's so much to learn there is so much practice you have to have a certain amount of hours that you need to put in before you can really become good at this and start applying to jobs it takes time to learn all of this and sometimes I just want things to happen now it's not gonna be like that it's been a year and I'm still learning a lot so my suggestion to other people who feel like me is to learn to be patient I still tell myself this I've got it a little bit better at it but I'm still very impatient just learn to enjoy the journey just know that this is something that is going to take a little bit of time but it's worth it just know that you're going to feel really proud of yourself once you get there but it does take a lot of effort allow yourself to enjoy the time that you spend studying enjoy not knowing how to do it's a journey that you can enjoy is a journey that you can be at peace with I think that if we give ourselves time and just really be at peace with the fact that you still have to learn and that you're new at this it's going to make it a much enjoyable experience and it's going to feel really rewarding once you're there those are the five mistakes or roadblocks that I wanted to touch on today I really hope this has helped you I'm going to leave any resources or any links down in the description so you are also able to access them if you enjoyed this video please give it a like and consider subscribing and I will see you next time bye [Music]

Channel: Ana Berrocal

Views: 24,761

Rating: 4.9288025 out of 5

Keywords: web-development, self-taught-web-developer, latinasintech

Id: tO1GtUB9fAI

Length: 13min 48sec (828 seconds)

Published: Sun Mar 01 2020