My decision to be Web Developer
On 14 August 2017, i started my journey in Alpha Camp Web Immersive Course for 12 weeks.
On the very first day of our course, we were asked… Why are you here? Some of us wants to have a change in career while some wants to learn to build an app for their startup… So how about me? Why am i here…?
Defining my Why.
I have been working as an assistant engineer for a number of years for a few companies, maintaining AXS machines to assembling and troubleshooting on wire bonding machines to manufacturing heavy army vehicles, and got paid a decent money. On the surface, it was the ideal job path.
But somethings just don’t feel right.
I would often think i was being ungrateful, or unfocused. I would get up (often late), kiss my wife, and rush out to catch the bus (which is always unpredictable), and squeeze myself through the crowd in the MRT.
Eventually, I’d get to work, put on my overall, gather my tools, and play my role I seemed to know all too well, the same old routine, for another day. And another.
And another… You get what I mean right?
I love my wife. And when I had to leave everyday to go to work, something just felt wrong. I hated leaving. I hated being away from her. Then one day we asked ourselves is this what we want for the rest of of our life?
It hit me. It wasn’t what I wanted. It isn’t what we wanted.
From that moment forward, I started picking up web development skills, learning the basics of web developing. It was a slow progression, then I started posting my freelance web service online on Carousell and gumtree. I had some successful projects, earning a few hundred dollars to build a simple dynamic website for startups, an achievement that was motivating when I finished a project and collected my earnings.
Then I started believing, web development skills is the way forward. My exit ticket to working for myself, the freedom to get up late, never leaving my family, and literally work on projects anytime, anywhere.
So here I am, a week into the course. It was eye opening and many things that i did not know was taught here, from the way we think of solving problems with computational thinking, to instructing computers using the pseudo code method, learning a new programming language (ruby) and most importantly, the Learning by Doing concept which we were repeatedly enforced with.
I do. We do. You do.
Basically, 70% of our time here is the effort we make to study the knowledge given and practice it on our own. In that way, we will be able to achieve most out of this course. We are taught to be independent when we learn. No more spoon feeding or holding hands to solve a problem just like back then in school days where there is only one solution to a problem. In the real world, you solve problems on your own, no one to guide you, and a problem can have many solutions. It just take effort to solve it.
Learning programming in ruby is fun. The language is easy to pick up and it has many shortcuts that makes programming faster. Hats off to Matz for creating this language.
We learned on how to solve a problem by breaking the problem into parts or steps, recognise and find patterns, then develop instructions to solve the problem and finally make an algorithm to generalise the patterns. This method eased our understanding of the problem and work towards a solution. Once we were taught this method, we were given exercises, a set of problems to solve and code it in ruby.
When taught the method of solving problems, we were able to code the solution easily. Somehow I think this method can not only work for programming but also in our life’s trials that we face.
On the last 2 days of the week, we were taught the cycle of software development and git. An idea is to be researched with support of user interviews on whether the idea is good and how the idea should be implemented (i.e. design, features).
Many startup failed because there was no market for their idea or product. Users simply don’t buy or bother. A point that is very much noted.
I think that’s all I have for now. So yeah, it has only been a week but i have learned alot! 11 more weeks to go! 2nd week we will start learning about HTML and CSS. The fundamentals of the web. Very excited to learn more!
Till next week then!
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