Learning by Doing
My journey in web development
Originally posted in the Blackstone Forge blog by Robert Pantschyschak
Working around some very intelligent people, I have recently been introduced to a number of new concepts, languages, and ideas, one of which really caught my interest: web design. Though I haven’t had much experience with it in the past, I love the idea of creating something both tangible and functional, with an emphasis on design. With my co-workers’ encouragement, I decided to embark on a journey through programming and design. This journey led me to places I didn’t expect to be, and made me realize that traditional methods of learning may not always be the most effective options.
It won’t come as a surprise to anyone that the web is saturated with advice and information about web design. Like many before me, I was overwhelmed by the sheer volume of opinions and advice. My greatest challenge was finding depth. Many articles were certainly helpful, but didn’t quite get me as far as I would like. Very little detail was provided on why certain topics were important or lessons that were crucial. Understandably, I struggled to retain the information I was consuming.
Another step of my journey took me to interactive online tutorials (such as Codecademy and Treehouse) which allow you to learn new languages/concepts, and actually write code following along with each lesson. These tutorials were much more beneficial in fostering knowledge growth, however I found myself struggling to find use-cases for the lesson examples, as they were typically very simple to accommodate beginners (such as myself), which ultimately led to a lack of interest and retention.
Frustrated with my progress, I chose a new strategy. I decided to just create something on my own, something from scratch that worked. I wanted to learn by doing something myself.
My start was anything but grand; getting some text to display on a web page, creating simple design schemes, laying out elements on the page properly. But with each experiment I learned a bit more, and my interests began to branch in many different directions. Compared to online tutorials, which also had me writing code, I was breathing life into my own creations, like Victor Frankenstein, but with web design. Instead of following an example that was written to be simple enough for beginners, I was creating my own goals, and using problem solving skills to achieve those goals.
As my familiarity with the languages and processes grew, I reached a level where I could experiment with the designs or behaviors I’d see in other websites, which served to validate my learning as I began to see the potential fruits of my labor.
This caused my interest in web design to blossom, as I was experiencing real-world challenges, and real-world accomplishments. With continuous experimentation, I felt much more confident in my ability to turn an idea into reality, and more interested in the possibilities that this new learning had created.
I now find myself studying and inspecting every website I visit, sometimes to the irritation of my wife who just wanted to view a restaurant’s online menu. I love seeing web page formats and behaviors that I’m not familiar with, and attempting to recreate them from scratch. I’ve noticed that what I learn from these exercises I retain much easier, because I’m not simply reading written lessons or examples, but I’m running into problems, searching for solutions, and discovering how to solve problems on my own.
This journey has taught me a lot about myself and how I learn. It’s been a joy to learn by doing, and polishing my skills by overcoming obstacles that arise naturally. With this strategy, each victory is a celebration and an opportunity to reinvigorate my interest. Looking back, I’m pleased with the progress I’ve made and the new skills I’ve learned so far, and I’m glad I found a way of learning that worked well for me. If you have the opportunity and the desire to learn something new, my advice would be to just try it.
Launched in Arlington, Virginia in 2002, Blackstone Federal is the beltway’s premier engineering, transformation, and creative design agency. Rooted in a common culture, Blackstone Federal employees bridge the gap between the beltway and Silicon Valley to create a company unlike any in DC.
Learn more about Blackstone Federal at blackstonefederal.com .
