Intro To ME!

Hey Everyone, my name is Andrew Elliott and I'm currently a Web Content Specialist with a focus on Accessibility at HCA in Nashville, TN. My journey in coding is relatively new, as I started teaching myself the basics of Front-end devving early in 2018, and moved into the accessibility world a mere 6 months later!

Since then though, I've come to realize that I'm kind of a flag just blowing in the wind. Whipping back and forth, whichever the way the wind takes me, with no real direction to speek of and it shows in my coding. Part of the issue (and what draws me to this career path) is there is just SO MUCH to learn, and you'll never really be able to learn it all! This is an amazing thing, but also my biggest draw back when trying to continue my lessons.

Being self-taught, you have to be hyper focused and learn things in order if you want to get that first job in the devving industry. Early on, I picked up HTML and CSS rather quickly, and thought that the rest of this would fly by just the same. Then came Javascript. I ran face first into this wall going full speed and when I hit that wall, it was really discouraging. SO I switched. To PHP, to Swift, etc and just kinda got lost in it all, mainly because jS intimidated the hell out of me.

Well, no longer. At the start of this year, I decided to take down the beast, and I feel like I've done just that, and have even confidently moved into React to help with getting the job search going! But this time I've run into another wall, something my friend Dave refers to as the "Credibility Gap".

You see, I feel like I have a solid handle on ES6 and React, but I have next to zero professional experience in building with these tools. Sure, I can build super cool projects, such as my Marvel Search Portal, but employers are wanting professional experience, not hobby level stuff.

This all said, is what brings me to this series. I'm new to this platform, so I'm unsure if this is content that's allowed here or not, but I intend to use Dev.to as a sort of diary, a journal that will chronicle my path from Web Content Specialist to Jr Developer and beyond.

Goal Setting

I don't want to revert back to being a flag formlessly flapping in the wind. I want to be hyper focused on my end goal, of being a Developer by the end of the year, and what steps I need to achieve this goal.

My friend Cory recently linked me this awesome article that goes over goal setting and it was honestly the inspiration behind starting this entry series. I'm not going to go over the article itself (hence why I linked it), but the gist is have an end goal and break that down into smaller goals that help to propel you forward to achieving said end goal.

Anyone who knows me personally knows I'm a HUGE Marvel fan, and that I'm a sucker for cosmic level bad guys who are complex and not just pure evil. So naturally, my favorite character in the Marvel Universe is Thanos, whose goal to collect the infinity stones is the perfect analogy here. While I don't want to wipe out half of the universe, I do want to be hyper focused like him and see my end goal realized.

End Goal: Be a Developer by January 1, 2020

The end game is to be a developer by the start of the new year. This may seem ambitious, but I feel it is perfectly attainable. My contract with HCA expires in December of this year, and with that I'll have a year and a half of experience working with HTML, CSS, and Javascript in a dotCMS systems, all with a focus on a11y and WCAG 2.0 compliance. As well, in my freelancing with Scrybe Digital, I help to build websites for clients using those same technologies, but also utilize Content Management Systems such as Wordpress, Wix and Squarespace.

And this is how I'm going to do it.

Goal #1: Learn Advanced React.js Skills

I have to say, I honestly LOVE React. It's easy to pick up, it's clean when written correctly and just makes my projects so much easier. However I really only know the basics and I want to change that. I just finished my first real project written in React (the search portal mentioned above), and I want to utilize sites like Freecodecamp and Pluralsight to dive deeper into this framework and learn as much as possible.

Goal #2: Build out my portfolio

Right now, if you go to my portfolio or my LinkedIn it feels somewhat lacking, though I can't quite put my finger on why. For my portfolio, I feel I need more projects on there, a proper contact form and maybe some color? As for my LinkedIn, I think it may be fine, but I'm unsure, and that's kind of my hang up with most of this process, I'm just so unsure of quite a bit in the field. For every article that says to "DO THIS!", there's two more that says why "DO THIS!" is totally wrong. It's hard to weed through the overgrown brush sometimes, so I'm going to do what I can to put myself out there and distinguish myself from the pack.

How? The best idea I've gotten so far is to cold-contact local non profits and see if I can do any website/application development for them for either free or next to nothing. This would tie in with my feeling of needing to help the community, learn how to use the skills I'm teaching myself, as well as make valuable connections and references. That, actually, starts as soon as I finish this blog post, and if you have any ideas on what else I could, please share!

Goal #3: Establish myself in the dev community

Networking is a big part of this, and I already do it some. I'm an active member of the NashDev slack channel and attend meetups when my schedule allows but I want to do better. I have plans to start a podcast with my friend and mentor, I want to present more at local meetups (which also helps me conquer my fear of public speaking) and I want to make valuable connections with people in this community.

Fin

All things considered, I've accomplished quite a bit in my short amount of time learning, but I'm not one to accept the minimum achievement. I'm ambitious and I don't intend to fail. So all in all, thanks for reading and I hope you stick around as I document my path to being a bonafide developer :D