I wrote for awhile on Dev.to 2 years ago.
What happened?
The short story is depression, but you're not my therapist, so let's not get deep into that. My second to last post on this site was a feeling of regret for not working hard enough.
I was upset at myself for playing video games instead of working on coding. But really, as Kasey Speakman discussed with me, it seems I was frustrated because I wasn't doing the right thing. I wasn't doing something fulfilling. During the times that I was working on projects as a newbie, it was especially rewarding because I was making little things move on the page and that made me happy!
I became unhappy because I could no longer find work that would challenge me. I was already feeling that, so that's why I had another article asking for advice of trying to get into the industry.
Pretty much after that post, I fell hard into that aforementioned depression and mental illness. After some hard work and consideration (and weirdly becoming much better and stable during the pandemic) in September of 2020 I just searched for "programming scholarships for women". I knew I needed guidance, but there was no way I could swing spending more money on school since I already went to fancy pants elite art college.
I happened upon a place called Kenzie Academy. It had a good payment plan (all on their website). I knew it was made for beginners and I had already surpassed that, but I wanted to solidify my web development experience and be able to create a web site from top to bottom and make connections to professionals in the industry.
Currently I have finished my Front-End Certificate (6 months). It was tough at times, but I learned a lot about React, MongoDB, and even Websocket for chat apps! I am now about a month into Quarter 3 where we learn Python for Backend.
I hate it.
So once again, I have been turning to video games and streaming as distractions.
But this time it feels different.
I've been using an app called Mix It Up to create alerts because I knew I could use images and have them more customized them Streamlabs that 99% of people use. What I didn't know is that you can almost have full control of the HTML/CSS of every single event that takes place.
I love it.
Warning I say a single bad word
Sadly you can not use javascript with it yet, but I'm learning lots of CSS tricks. I've been having so much fun doing this. When I make these silly little things, I think "This is kinda what I want to do". It's the exact same thing I liked when I was a beginner.
I was making little things move on the page and that made me happy!
It's the exact reason I love making games too. I'm a very visual person. It seems that manipulating data on the backend is just not what excites me. So now I have the make the decision of what I want to do, 6 months earlier then anticipated. I have been advised to stay in school, but look for jobs starting yesterday.
Which jobs? I'm not sure. Front-End Development is the easiest to pin down, but I was also told about UI/UX and CSS Animation Specialist. I'm not perfect yet, but I have a silly little digital certificate to my name now.
So how has Dev.to changed in 2 years? What kind of articles are most popular now? Where has your coding journey went since 2019?
Top comments (1)
Take it one step at a time to figure out yourself by challenging your comfort zone.