It’s not easy being a new Dev. We get this overwhelming feeling of “what in the hell am I supposed to do now?”- at least, I do. What’s the next project? What’s the next thing to learn? Why does everything look so bad?
Well, I’m slowly starting to learn that it does get easier. The more I use React, or Vue, or whatever framework you want to use, the more I understand. It’s almost cliché at this point but, “just dive into projects, you’ll learn” really is true.
The hard part, though, is figuring out what do we make? Another Twitter clone? Another todo app? I’m not sure about y’all, but I didn’t want to go with the same-ole-same-ole apps.
So what did I make?
Well, something I found useful to me. I’m also a photographer so I wanted a website where people could go and see my work, that’s where my portfolio came from. I wanted something fast, easy to add to, and stylish. I would say 2/3 were achieved.
But going along the lines of what to build, think about what you like to do besides coding. For me, I love space, rockets, and Formula 1. So I built a web app that uses the r/SpaceX API to display when the next SpaceX launch is. You can check out that small SPA here.
But that honestly doesn’t help with the never ending question of “am I good enough?”
From my experience, nothing tells you “yes, you are ready.” You will know; you will feel it. You will have a feeling of “Yes, I’m finally ready”
And then you will get rejected, and rejected, and rejected. It sucks. I hate it. I get rejected daily. But I’m not letting it stop me.
It takes minimal effort to apply for jobs. It takes all the effort to keep going. Build more. Learn more. Do more.
It gets easier, but it’s never easy.
What’s your feelings as a newbie? I’d love to hear in the comments!
Top comments (9)
Since you enjoy photography, I recommend building something that might help other photographers. It could be a knowledge based website on photography, an app that helps you create an online portfolio with your photos, a place to share or even sell a certain theme of images. Since I'm not into photography I'm not familiar with what photographers need but you get my idea.
This is a great idea! Thank you!
In early years the best advice I got was two-fold: write as much code as possible, but avoid “spaghetti code”. Good comments & breaking things into their own class/subclass early on helped in learning more complex aspects such as memory management & persistence layers. Learning to ditch “if” logic, etc. comes later as you refine. Then, CodeSignal launched and I could challenge myself to solve a problem in fifteen different languages: this really showed me where I had to improve and where I was excelling.
Some languages & frameworks that seem attractive on discussion forums will continue to catch your eye long into your career. I like your approach of getting after it, but be choosy about where you’d like to end up on this path- frontend visual work or with the systems they run on.
Languages that I’d say are a benefit to your resume are those applicable to the job.. but JS, Java, Python & SQL are super handy across most of this space.
Keep on keepin on. You got this
Thank you so much! 😊
You have already taken the first step by sharing your experience in public. This is a great step. Keep building and keep sharing, you will reach your goal.
Thank you so much 😁
I agree very highly with @Mathew Chan,
anyways if you need any help, feel free to check in:
discord.gg/qhHjuqgJ6Y
I’ll have to check this out! Thank you!
Finishing a course or project and knowing what to do next has always been my Everest. The elation of learning new things and not know what to do with them next