My senior year of high school, I was accepted into a university for Mobile and Web Application Development. I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do, but I was going to start there and see if my mind changed.
As a kid, I always loved tinkering with software and technology. I would edit the local files of the hamsterball game my father pirated and give myself unlimited lives. I’d host my own World of Warcraft private servers and connect graphical database clients to them when I was 9. Moving in that direction only made sense.
Fast forward to community college. I’m trying to meet the transfer agreement requirements so that I can transfer with all of my credits and not have to retake anything. And I hear someone in one of my networking classes talk about penetration testing, and the lucrative career behind it.
I started looking into it and eventually changed my mind; it was easier and didn’t require math. Specifically, Calculus and Physics. I applied to a different college for Information Assurance and Cyber Defense and got in.
I’ve been here for 5 years now. I’m behind pace because I’m demotivated. I never found it that fun, just interesting. It should’ve just stayed a hobby where I’d play the occasional CTF.
So, I’ve decided to go back to square one and I’m self learning full stack web development through The Odin Project. It’s been really fun and the course is super informative and helpful. An m-mommy side effect is that you become proficient in using Linux, because they force you to use Ubuntu.
Once I’ve completed the projects and finished everything The Odin Project has to offer, I will likely end up checking out Full Stack Open. I’ve heard great things about them as a follow-up. Though, The Odin Project is supposed to get you career ready. The thing is, I don’t think I’ll ever really want to stop learning.
I already have Udemy courses purchased that I plan to watch after I finish TOP. They cover Django and Flask. Knowing multiple backend languages would be such a nice thing to know as someone new to the field. Plus I just love Python.
I’ve been taking Angela Yu’s ‘100 Days of Code’s for Python, and it’s been really fun. The only other resource I used was Automate the Boring Stuff, and while it was a great, 10/10 resource, it’s aimed for complete beginners. So my thirst for knowledge wasn’t quenched. And the video series was back when Windows 7 was mainstream. There were some issues with commands and libraries he was using.
Anyway, that about explains my error. I’ve spent 5 years in college studying for a degree I’m not interested in when I had the opportunity to study what I wanted from the beginning. And I’m only just now getting started on that.
When I inevitably finish this learning path and become knowledgeable enough to get a career, I’ll be back with another post letting you know that you can do it too!
journey to webdev 