The first day of school Part 5, Part #3

And here we are for part #3 of my journey into software development! In my last post, I spoke about the doubts that had crept into my mind while working remotely. Now almost a month further along, I'm pleased to report that those doubts seem like a distant memory. In the last few weeks, I've passed the 'back end' block of my course and started and finished working on our 'front end' block. Two phrases that might be unfamiliar if you're not in the software development world.

To give a very short explanation of both concepts, The 'front end' of a website is the part that users interact with, it's everything you see in your browser or phone when you visit a website. The 'back end' makes all this possible. It contains the server, an application, and often times a database. In the last 6 weeks, I've set out to learn both concepts and use my knowledge to build up my first back and front end projects. As I've mentioned in my blogs before I'm going to keep them fairly light on technical language and explaining what is what. But for whoever is interested in these projects in more detail, please have a look on my Github page for both repositories and live links to their live versions:

https://github.com/VoltrefferNL/FENC-News-App

Right now I'm putting the last few touches on my front-end project and after that, I'll move into the last block of my course at Northcoders. It's time for the Project block!

Before that, I'd like to go over a few things I've found myself thinking over the last few weeks. I'm starting off with something that I find quite challenging...

As the end of our course is approaching, we are encouraged to start building up our network, something that, because of remote working and ongoing social restrictions, looks a lot different than it would have just a few months ago. Virtual networking such as online conversations, posting things on LinkedIn, commenting on LinkedIn or just reaching out cold to a new contact feels very 'new' and a little unnatural to me. It's out of my comfort zone. Who's going to listen to what I have to say? How do I give my two cents on topics I've just learned?

No alt text provided for this image It seems this will be another journey for me to undertake alongside starting my project block. I might turn up the frequency of my blogs these coming weeks to force myself to get out there and voice my opinion on some things I come across or dive into some more technical things along the way. Look out for updates!

To end this post on an upbeat note, I can't express how excited I am to get going and apply my new-found knowledge from the last few weeks to a real project. Working within a group and sharing thoughts on how to go about things is something that I've been really missing these past few weeks while working from home.

Next to that, it's also time to start looking ahead. What will be next after the course? How do I start orientating what I would like to achieve in the coming months? As I mentioned before, I'm going to increase my activity on writing these blogs, so please follow me into this last (and maybe most scary?) part of my journey!