Story, story…
If you’re looking for inspiration on how to venture into tech or how to begin your journey into web development, then this post is for you.
Please note that I’ve written a comprehensive guide on how to begin your tech journey here (insert link here). This post is just a follow up of the previous post and my way of giving you a detailed breakdown of how you can also start your journey into web development.
My venture into web development started from an idea to build a business – one that later went on to fail woefully and I’m not shameless or regretful about it.
I wanted to build a website that could use modern technologies to convert text on paper to softcopy. The text in this question was past questions and answers for students of The University of Uyo, Akwa Ibom State. I had a ton of past questions I had accumulated during my stay in the school and I wanted to make these past questions available to my colleagues for many years to come. Hence, the business I wanted to start.
Initially, I knew I needed to build a website but I didn’t know how to start or what to do. And so I went to Google (and I have always gone to Google for advice on how to do every other thing after that) and I searched for the needed information. I don’t remember my search queries, but I remember that one day I was sitting in one of the classroom blocks and I saw an ad that said I could start a website for just $2. I was very curious and I followed the ad.
I don’t remember the service that was being offered but one thing led to the other and I created an account with 000webhost.com and so my journey started. This was in 2016.
I made use of their free website hosting service and website builder to build my first website. It was a drag-and-drop wysiwyg editor and I wasn’t really familiar with the interface. As a matter of fact, I was frustrated really quickly because I couldn’t get a lot of things done.
As time went on, I learned about WordPress and I started out by creating an account with wordpress.com from whence I came in contact with another wysiwyg. Very frustrating stuff. I moved on from WordPress to Blogger and found a little bit of solace – Blogger was much more customizable than any of the other editors I had ever used (and they even had a mobile app that made posting much easier).
And so, with Blogger, I built my first blog (https://myschoolaid.blogspot.com). Blogger was also Wysiwyg (which means “What You See Is What You Get”, by the way) but it had options for you to edit templates and write real code to change stuff, rather than just a drag-and-drop builder that I was used to.
As time went on, I got some money, paid for a hosting service and installed WordPress to build the main site for Myschoolaid. The blog was only a small part of the bigger picture.
My experience with WordPress was later put to good use in 2019 when I needed to build a website for my church (the website is no longer available, sadly). It was a very tedious process for me though because I had used WordPress in 2016/2017 and I hadn’t had the opportunity to build any site again after 2017 up until 2019 and I was faced with completely different technologies.
It was very difficult. I spent hours upon hours on YouTube and Google trying to grasp the littlest of things. I spent so many nights doing midnight plan just so I could cover the cost of data. It took me a lot of time and sacrifice but eventually, I learned the art of developing websites with WordPress and I have been able to perfect the knowledge now.
Towards the end of 2019, I realized that I could do more through the power of coding. I started learning basic HTML and CSS and was strongly developing interest in Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning (But that was not to be. At least not yet). By January, 2020, I was opportuned to enroll for a one-month mentorship program by The Roothub, Uyo (insert link here) and from there, I got to learn the intricacies of basic frontend web development.
As time went on, I also stumbled upon a free resource by Udemy – The Complete 2018 Web Development Bootcamp and I got it. The resource helped me to expand my knowledge of basic frontend development and by February 2020, I had landed my first job as a web developer, building frontend applications.
Note: I only knew HTML and CSS at this time.
By March, the global lockdown took effect and I had to be confined to my house. I took the time to brush up on my CSS and learn a little bit of Javascript. Before the year ran out, I had gained sufficient knowledge of important frontend technologies and I was ready to move on to backend development.
This Complete Web Development Bootcamp also came to my rescue once again as it was complete indeed – It covered modules that taught frontend and backend development. I took the time to learn Node.js and graduated into a fullstack developer by October 2020 and by November I got my first job as a fullstack developer.
In other words, it took me a whole year to self-learn web development and become good enough to start taking jobs and delivering them. A whole year!
By 2021, I got into professional freelancing and was building websites for contract companies the whole year. I improved on my frontend skills massively and also took the time to learn backend development to a very large extent. By this time, I had concluded that I wanted to major in Javascript and I was really grateful that the language offered me the opportunity to do everything I wanted to do – frontend, backend, mobile apps, desktop apps, everything!
This was how I carved a career path for myself in web development and became a Fullstack Javascript Web Developer.
The journey was not without a lot of challenges and inadequacies. I faced issues with money, data, light and even self motivation. I was frustrated on many levels and on many occasions and at some point, I even wanted to quit and focus on other things, but the passion was stronger than the problems. However, after 5 years of stumbling around, I have finally found the path and I’m towing it with all diligence.
You don’t need to fumble for 5 years to get it right. You don’t need to spend 1 year to learn the basics of web development, from beginner to fullstack. You don’t need to spend many hours, googling away your life. With just a click, you can get access to my free mentorship program here and kickstart your journey into web development.
Want to talk about a few more things and ask a few more questions? Let’s connect here.
Signed,
Awesome Bassey,
Award Winning,
Fullstack Javascript Web Developer.
Very Inspirational and motivating.