I've previously alluded to the fact that I caused myself a lot more grey hairs in the weeks leading up to my time with the Mayden Academy than I really needed to; in fact the first 2 weeks have been (reasonably) relaxed. Sure, there's been a lot of content to cram in but Charlie and Mike (the two chaps who are running it) have let us learn at our own pace, leaving us plenty of time to ask questions & put into practice what we've been soaking up.
We covered the basics of HTML & CSS in week 1, including mimicking two web-pages (one being responsive) to apply those skills. Week 2 was all about Developer Essentials -think git, IDE's and more. What was really exciting was that this included Scrum Master training, an Agile framework that many workplaces in the industry work to. It was refreshing to see a new way of working and, while my last position gave us a fair amount of autonomy, I can't wait to work in a team using Scrum. We are now all Certified Scrum Masters - meaning that we can take this new skill into a workplace and help lead them to implement Scrum. Also we played with Lego, and you can't compete with that.
The upcoming week has us looking at building our first full website from beginning to end - a portfolio site designed to show off all of our progress and future builds. I am 100% concerned that I won't be able to design anything beyond a basic frame, but the guys have been pretty clear that we aren't expected to be designers (this is, after all, a course teaching us how to code, not design). I still can't help but feel a little useless when looking at others portfolio's.
I am a little worried about the upcoming weeks. I was hoping to be able to fit in some extra work most evenings just to recap the days content (luckily so far I haven't really needed to, but I expect that to change) but I have family commitments and a long commute: I have barely managed a minute of extra-curricular work. I've got my fingers crossed that I can find some solution. Also, american-isms like "gray", "math" and "color" keep slipping into use outside of the academy...that can't be healthy.
At least by the end of this week I will have something of my own that I have built from nothing - which, even if it is entirely rubbish, will be pretty cool and something that I could not have achieved before a fortnight ago.
Top comments (2)
This post is such a relief! Im also taking a course for coding, and i'm also worried about how my portfolio will compare. I don't have much of an eye for design, even being a former architecture student. There's an online (free) email course called Design for hackers. It's nothing serious, but it gives some decent tips on which fonts are recommended or how color palettes work. I've been getting them and reading them over the week as i try to apply them to my work along with what i'm learning.
Good luck!
Thanks for the suggestion, good luck with your course!