I'm writing this little posty-post, having a late dinner, and dragging my tired butt to bed.
The first week of Web Development bootcamp is officially behind me.
I don't think I realized until this week that I am getting actual college credit for taking this class at CNM. Like, I'm really a student again. I get my student ID on Monday. I am not complaining. I just thought it was like a career thing or something, and not considered an actual class. So that's neat.
This is 100% everything I wanted it to be (so far). Even before it officially began on Monday, I was learning things through the pre-work and making connections with people.
For example, part of the pre-work was an HTML course on LinkedIn. I took it, even though I've been messing with HTML since the days of Myspace. I knew from my time at JSU that it's a markup for web pages, basically the bones of your website. But this course on LinkedIn went IN DEPTH, like, telling the difference between <em> and <i> (which both make things appear in italics) or the difference between <strong> and <b> (which both make things appear bold). [If you care, the difference is that they are dependent on the context of the needed bold or italics.] Also, <center> is deprecated. I didn't know that. HTML has officially left as much styling as possible to CSS.
I wasn't too concerned about picking up HTML or CSS because I've dabbled in them for ages and felt ok about it. JavaScript has been hard for me for many years, though, and I feel like I'm finally starting to get it. We have 5 small coding assignments to do, due Tuesday. We did the first (and easiest one) together as a class so the teacher could show us how to run and check them. I finished one yesterday, and two today. I'm mostly done with my 5th (it's supposed to be a challenge for extra credit), but we haven't gone over the information I need to complete it. I asked the teacher if I was allowed to Google, and he asked me what I was doing. I told him, and he told me to just wait for the material on Monday. I told him I thought it was labeled a "challenge" for extra credit because it was harder because we didn't know what we were doing yet. 😂 So I'm feeling really good about things so far. And I'm really enjoying all of my homework. There is just kind of a LOT of it.
Even though things are moving at a fast pace, there is a lot of hands-on work and problem-solving and I really think it's what I needed. I've been curious how all of this works together for a long time, so I'm very interested in all of it. Our instructors take the time to explain everything really in-depth. Maybe I needed my hand held to pick up JavaScript. Or maybe repeated exposure to it is finally paying off. Or maybe the fact that I'm doing this for myself and not a grade or work has taken the pressure off and I can just think and absorb and try without pressure. I don't know. But I'm really proud that I've completed 3.5 coding assignments after only 1 week with just referencing my notes (and 1 small Google because I knew what I was trying to say, but not the syntax for saying it). It's a big deal for me.
I also love my classmates. We're a mix of everything. We have 5 girls and 4 guys. We have at least 2 people who have moved to the US from other countries, possibly 3. One person is Native. We're from all different backgrounds/levels of experience. And we're just having the best time getting to know each other and help each other. I think I'm gonna be so busy and having so much fun that these next 11 weeks are going to fly by.
Anyway, that's how it's going. Great so far!
Here's a pic of one of the code assignments from today. 🙂 I know it's not very impressive to anyone who knows how to do this already, but I'm so grateful to be making progress!
