Orlando

Orlando Public Library

I have now been in Orlando for a week and I'm certainly grateful for the time that I've spent here so far. Wednesday I visited my first meet up ever--a "hackathon" for a volunteer project called Lady Lake Pet Adoption that focused on creating an app that will help connect lost pets with their owners. As a newbie I didn't have much to offer via writing code, but it was a great to experience an environment of like minded individuals sharing a similar goal.

Next week will officially be my third week of learning to code full time, and there are some valuable takeaways that I have realized so far:

Learning to code is challenging-- duh, right? But you can't fully understand what that statement means until you get your hands dirty with code. Getting the code to do exactly what you want can be very frustrating at times, but when it does work the reward is immediate, which gives me an extra boost to continue on. 

Lake Eola, Orlando

Learning does not work for me by simply understanding one perspective-- this has been huge for me this past week as I started to run into my first road blocks (aka- Free Code Camp's Bonfire Challenges). Up to this point I had read a ton of information about Java Script but had not actually comprehended everything fully. I realized this when I was asked to do something simple such as "truncate this string if it is longer than the given argument" and stared at my screen dumbfounded. You don't really know something until you can actually do it and can repeat that same result over again in a different environment. So what I did when I started to run into problems was take a step back. I revisited some theory on Java Script syntax, looked over a few chapters in Eloquent Java Script, and watched lectures on YouTube that were focused on my sticking points (most helpful lecture for general understanding: Crockford on Java Script). I have learned that without a teacher that can help in person it helps to get many perspectives on things that can be challenging, something that the Internet offers in spades.

Keep it simple-- I have a tendency to want to get everything done all at the same time. The problem here is that it will make me feel overwhelmed and disappointed when I look back at the past week and don't see the progress that I wanted. Solution is to keep it simple. Instead of trying to tackle 6 things in one day, I will focus on getting one or two things completed. This gives me the ability to cross something off my to-do list which can be very satisfying.

Morning rituals work-- I have slightly altered my wake-up time since being down here mainly because I have found myself more productive during later hours, but keeping to my schedule has been hugely beneficial to me in a new environment. Every morning (after 7 hours of sleep) I wake up, splash water on my face, do a 1x2x4 breathing exercise, run two miles, meditate, eat breakfast and then begin my day. I find that if I get away from this routine than my entire day suffers.

This week has been a great learning experience, up to this point I have:

• finished 20% of Eloquent Java Script 
• 50% of The Selfish Gene 
• completed Crockford on Java Script Lectures 
• completed 10 of the first FCC bonfire challenges 
• visited my first meet up (another one tomorrow morning) 
• and increased my reading speed from 336 words/min to 552 words/min after using this technique from Tim Ferris. 

-John