A Look Back on 2017
It’s 2018 and I want to reflect on my past year since starting to write code and Medium articles. Inspiration for this post comes from Chingu member Andrés Pérez who recently did a review of 2017 and at the end asked:
“Where were you a year ago?”
Well, I’m here to tell you.
2017 Recap:
- January 11 — Made my first commit
- Completed my first project — Tribute Page (FCC curriculum)
^^^ LOL wow looking back at old code is great for a good laugh - May 14 — Completed my first online specialization course (Python for Everybody through the University of Michigan on Coursera)
- June 9 — Joined my first Chingu Cohort (shoutout to Kiwis!)
^^^ Took a stab at doing a Speedrun and decided it was more for seeing how much you knew and could build in a short period of time, versus actually learning on the go. I plan on taking another stab at the FCC front-end projects when I have a stack I’m more comfortable coding in. - June 27 — Wrote my very first Medium article regarding a re-do at the Tribute Page project for the Speedrun
- July 16 — Finished my first web application that included JavaScript (jQuery) that I wrote on my own
- September 20 — Completed my second online specialization course (Web Design for Everybody through the University of Michigan on Coursera)
- September 21 — Joined my first Chingu Voyage Cohort (shoutout to @jmbothe and Tyler Del Rosario)
^^^ Pivotal move for me as I felt that I grew the most as a learner through this cohort. I previously wrote a Medium article about the project that we built. - November 28 — Completed Udacity’s Intro to Programming Nanodegree
- December 1 — Got my first exposure to working with Squarespace and helped style a business page
NOTES:
— Made over 500 contributions on GitHub
— Completed almost all of the FCC front-end track (just need to finish the Simon game)
— Joined a second Chingu Voyage Cohort but unfortunately the team seems to have fallen apart a bit; driven to make the next one more successful!
— A stupid amount of coffee was consumed
Looking forward into 2018
I learned a great deal in my first year of programming. Started a ton of online courses; only finished a handful. Started a bunch of simple web apps; finished just about every single one. Met a lot of new people through Slack, Gitter, and networking. Though all of this was life inspiring for me to look back on, I’m even more excited for what 2018 holds. My goals include making a bigger emphasis on learning algorithms, data structures, best practice for code architecture, commenting my code more, learning more libraries and frameworks in JavaScript, diving deep into the backend of JavaScript, participate in a Hackaton, contribute to open source, network more, and building many many more projects than I did this past year. I never used to write publicly, but decided to use Medium more often. This will not only serve as a platform to showcase my work, but also my learning and growth. I hope it inspires and helps others achieve their goals like it has for me.
With all of that said, I am both excited and proud of how far I’ve come. Entering the world of programming was very daunting (let’s be honest, I was scared out of my mind). But with a vast amount of resources on the web to help, alongside some great community members in Chingu (shoutout to Chance Taken for creating it), and a few friends who have helped me along the way, I’m happy with the direction I’m heading in and can’t wait to see what the future holds for me. I plan to start off 2018 with high motivation and ambition to improve myself as a programmer and to refine my craft.
Until next time — Happy Coding!
