DEV Community: Maeling (she/her)

My first advent code challenge with #JavaScriptmas !

Maeling (she/her) — Sat, 19 Dec 2020 18:57:17 +0000

In January of this year, I decided to learn how to program after dabbling in HTML and CSS for several years. Since I was curious about the basics of computer science, I began my journey with the popular and often recommended CS50 Introduction to Computer Science course offered by Harvard.

My Self-Directed Journey to Becoming a Software Engineer Begins! 🎉

Maeling (she/her) ・ Jan 10 '20

#beginners #career #codenewbie #womenintech

Ever since I started my journey of learning how to program, I've been amazed by the amount of learning resources that are available, and many for free! This actually became a bit distracting for me at one point, when I found myself doing CS50, freeCodeCamp and The Odin Project all at the same time 😖.

Is it better to focus on one coding curriculum at a time as a newbie❓

Maeling (she/her) ・ Jan 31 '20

#discuss #beginners

After receiving some great advice, I realized that I needed to focus on one curriculum at a time to be able to really dive deep and gain a greater understanding of the concepts. I zoned in on CS50 and was in the middle of Week 8 (Web Track) of the course when I saw a tweet about #JavaScriptmas, a 24-day JavaScript coding challenge being offered by Scrimba. Since JavaScript had just been introduced to us in week 8's lesson in CS50, I decided that the challenge would be a great companion for my course material. Plus, it just looked like it would be so much fun coding small challenges along with fellow coders all over the world!

24 Days of #JavaScriptmas

I received a #JavaScriptmas challenge from Scrimba everyday from December 1st through the 24th that was JavaScript-based and sometimes included a mix of HTML and CSS. I really enjoyed Scrimba's unique and interactive code screencasts (aka "scrims") that introduced the challenge for each day. It was great to have them explain the challenge for the day and then have the ability to jump straight into the code editor within the same screen.

Because CS50 primarily focuses on C and Python as far as programming languages, I wondered if I would be able to complete any of the challenges. However, as I started to work through the challenges each day, I was encouraged to see that I could solve them using the programming logic I had learned from studying the other languages. It really became a matter of understanding and integrating syntax differences and the many methods that were available to use with JavaScript.

My #JavaScriptmas Solutions

You're more than welcome to browse some of my solutions via my "scrims" below. Some of my favorite challenges were the ones that involved HTML and CSS (*), since it taught me a lot about interacting with the Document Object Model (DOM). I know I'll be able to improve on my solutions as I learn more about JavaScript, but you have to start somewhere and I'm grateful to have completed all 24 days of this year's challenge!

Day 1: Candies
Day 2: Deposit-Profit
Day 3: Chunky Monkey
Day 4: Century From Year
Day 5: Reverse a String
Day 6: Sort by Length
Day 7: Count Vowel Consonant
Day 8*: The Rolling Dice (my first time ever "drawing" with CSS)
Day 9: Sum Odd Fibonacci Numbers
Day 10: Adjacent Elements Product
Day 11: Avoid Obstacles
Day 12: Valid Time
Day 13: Extract Each Kth
Day 14: Maximal Adjacent Difference
Day 15*: Carousel (an image slider - definitely my favorite challenge!)
Day 16: Insert Dashes
Day 17: Different Symbols Naive
Day 18: Array Previous Less
Day 19: Alphabet Subsequence
Day 20: Domain Type
Day 21: Sum of Two
Day 22: Extract Matrix Column
Day 23*: Social Media Input
Day 24*: Test Your Agility (this one is actually fun to play!)

Have you ever participated in a code challenge before? What are some of your favorites?

Is it better to focus on one coding curriculum at a time as a newbie❓

Maeling (she/her) — Fri, 31 Jan 2020 15:50:26 +0000

This year, I started my self-directed journey in learning how to code and decided to start off with these three online curriculums:

Throughout the course of this month, I decided to pause on The Odin Project about halfway during the Web Development section since I was covering HTML and CSS already in the freeCodeCamp curriculum. I'm now in the midst of the first project (Tribute Page) for freeCodeCamp and also in Week 2 of CS50.

I'm now starting to wonder if I should just focus on one curriculum fully and wait to finish one before attempting to complete the other. This is my first time learning how to program in C (in CS50) and because the other project in freeCodeCamp has a different focus (HTML & CSS), I wonder if I need to focus all my efforts on CS50 for the time being.

So I want to know, what does your learning process look like? Have you ever worked on multiple courses (in different languages) at the same time? If so, what was that like? If you made the switch to just focus on one at a time, was that helpful for you?

I would greatly appreciate your helpful input!

My Self-Directed Journey to Becoming a Software Engineer Begins! 🎉

Maeling (she/her) — Fri, 10 Jan 2020 04:07:10 +0000

Photo by Matt Howard on Unsplash

Hello DEV world!👋🏾

My name is Maeling and I'm currently a work-at-home and homeschooling mom with a background in Materials Science & Engineering...

that decided that 2020 is the year I officially begin my self-directed journey to becoming a software engineer!!

My Introduction to Coding

My introduction to coding was in a highschool computer class (back in 2002) and I was amazed to see how a few lines of code could bring my very own personal web page to life! Fast forward many years, and I'm starting various blogs while picking up various HTML and CSS tidbits along the way.

At the beginning of last year, I found myself working on a calendar-based project in Adobe InDesign that required the use of some third-party scripts that made what I was trying to do manually, a million times easier! Outside of a short tutorial here and there, I had never really focused on trying to learn JavaScript, but now my interest was peaked to the max! All of these project ideas started coming to my mind and I knew I would have to and WANTED TO learn JS to start implementing them!

Then this past December, I hear of a community called Career Karma, that was created to help people learn about how to pursue a career in tech. I participated in their #21daycKChallenge that allowed me to network with people with varying levels of experience and exposed me to free learning resources so I could get started right away. They also provided information about different coding bootcamp programs as a potential path for entering the tech workforce. I ended up going through the application process for 2 coding bootcamps that had online part-time programs and was accepted, but I ultimately decided to go with the self-directed learning route as it was the best fit for me, giving me the flexibility that I need right now.

My Self-Directed Learning Path

In order to stay focused, I decided to start my learning path with a few project-based curriculums, focusing on the fundamentals of computer science, HTML, CSS, JavaScript and Ruby. I have many other languages, courses and projects coming down the road, but I had a feeling (and received some great advice!) that I needed to limit myself in the beginning in order to build a good foundation and make great progress.

My Current Online Courses:

CS50 - Introduction to Computer Science (CS)
freeCodeCamp's Responsive Web Design Certification (HTML, CSS, JavaScript)
The Odin Project Full Stack Ruby on Rails Curriculum(HTML, CSS, Git, JavaScript, Ruby, CS, Job Search Advice & more!)

I also started the #100daysofcode challenge at the beginning of this year which has really helped me be consistent with my coding routine and has been connecting me with fellow #CodeNewbies and encouragement from those further along in their journeys!

Learning Path Log

Because I feel like I come across a cool new book/forum/tutorial/course/etc. every 10 seconds (but seriously! 😂), I decided to create a Learning Path Log on GitHub (I just learned how to use Git in the terminal this week!!) that keeps track of my learning activities and resources during this journey.

I'll be updating it very frequently, so feel free to check it out to see what I'm up to in my journey!

Thank You

I couldn't end this post without saying thank you to the DEV team and everyone who contributes to this platform! It has been such an amazing resource to me already and boasts a very encouraging atmosphere for all of continuous learners! I look forward to engaging more with this supportive community!

DEV Community: Maeling (she/her)

My first advent code challenge with #JavaScriptmas !

My Self-Directed Journey to Becoming a Software Engineer Begins! 🎉

Maeling (she/her) ・ Jan 10 '20

Is it better to focus on one coding curriculum at a time as a newbie❓

Maeling (she/her) ・ Jan 31 '20

24 Days of #JavaScriptmas

My #JavaScriptmas Solutions

Is it better to focus on one coding curriculum at a time as a newbie❓

My Self-Directed Journey to Becoming a Software Engineer Begins! 🎉

My Introduction to Coding

My Self-Directed Learning Path

Learning Path Log

Thank You

I'm here to connect so if you have questions, advice, encouragement 😊... feel free to reach out to me here or on Twitter at @maelingmurphy!