#learning tech

I have been seduced by learning once again!

I have one month access to an entire collection of video courses (a huge library). They come with CERTIFICATES!!!! This is both a dream and a nightmare for me. So many options is too many options! 😂😅

I want to learn it all...and I keep trying to do it! HELP!

I started out just casually looking for game design courses. Then I found UX, then UI...then a BUNCH of other things...

And now I have found coding. Something I didn't know I wanted, nay...needed!

I am going to try and record my goals for courses and understanding what I want and need next here... I am getting way too overwhelmed with all the options available. (help, I'm a baby in a candy shop!)

My goals for today:

Finish the "Career Essentials in Soft Dev" and take the test...it makes sense

At least 1 HTML course (2+ hours long each)

Finish the Accessibility course for UX (another 2hrs)

Stare down the CSS course so it gets intimidated and doesn't know that its beefy 5hrs is scary...(at least 5 mins, reapply as needed)

Finish the Figma video that I keep starting and get distracted in...poor video

Recheck job listings to make sure that the things I'm learning together make sense... "Can I sell the employee/freelancer that I'm building?" 😅😂🤣

Dev Diaries, Masterlist

June 5, 2023

Okie dokie!

Today, my goal is to finish up the UX Prototyping course. It's a bit boring because I'm not planning on using these programs myself. I want a good understanding of the basics of most programs though. It's probably a ✨sparkle worry ✨ issue, but hey. I did see a lot of posts and content by UX designers saying that they wish they knew more programs. It makes sense to me, but I love learning. 😋

I'll probably get in a HMTL and/or CSS course today. I did the math...it's about 40+ hours of video time between the two courses. That's a lot. I want to make sure I really absorb it so I'm gonna take a bit longer. I don't plan on finishing them this week, that is for sure. I'm going for balance this month, no cramming! 😅😂

I am going to start my first portfolio project today!!! I don't know which one I'm gonna do yet, but I'm gonna do it! I'll probably find a challenge somewhere first, maybe. Even if it doesn't make it to my portfolio, it will be good practice. I have a project of sorts that I was working on, but I'm not sure it would work for this. It will take awhile to get done though, so I'll be doing it along with the other projects.

The AI got to me!

So, you know how I said I was gonna get seduced by the AI dev classes... They found me, and I think I'm a goner. 😋😁 I wanna take courses that discuss it but don't cover any coding yet. Like I said yesterday, I need to know what it's gonna do before I learn how.

I'm also looking at Learning Experience Design. This is something I've always been interested. Might as well take a course on it while it's available. Try it on for size, if you will...

P.S. I'm not sure I like having a list of things I'm "supposed" to do each day. I have tried it a couple times and it feels like a demand (no bueno) and I have more fun when it's just written about instead...😊

I have a list of things I wanna get done eventually and that tend to work better. Making a daily list just adds too much to do. Little lists tend to turn into big lists no matter what I do. If I make something bite size, I just take bigger bites...

Where it started...

The Plan...sorta

Day 1 -

Start (It's not morning...)

Midday (things start to make sense...oops)

End of Day (Actually 2am...XD it's normal)

Day 2 -

Studying hard, from bed 🛌

Starting to Feel the progress

End of Day- Holy Toast!

Day 3-

New Plan, again...

Overheated… lol brain too strong

Day 4-

Dun dun DUN!!! Half way!

No end of day...I got sick

Day 5-

Narrowing my scope!

Almost There!!!!

Day 6-

Mini Start of Day lol

Finished!!!

Day 7-

Today's the Day!!! It's just not the right one...😅🤣

Day 8- June 4, 2023

We are back!!!

I feel better now, and I can fix it!

Day 9- June 5, 2023

Setting the Foundations

I plan to do a summary of things I’ve learned along the way and what I’m gonna plan going forward. Cause we ain’t done!!! This was just the beginning.

It's been a couple days since I have updated anything because I was actually taking a break. (not gonna lie, I didn't think I would 😅😋)

I have something I wanted to share with ya'll though. This isn't sponsored, I just really appreciate that it exists and wanna share. 🥰

As I mentioned in one of my previous posts, I spoke with a mentor and it really helped me feel more grounded in my direction. It's nice to have someone to help out that has been where you wanna go.

I found this mentor and many others for different interests of mine at ADPList! It has free mentorships for so many things. UX/UI, Engineering, Game Design, and many others. There are mentors from some of the top tech companies and freelancers if that is the direction you wanna check out.

Checkout ADPList Mentorships (this gives me on site "karma points" but nothing else)

Dev Diaries, Masterlist

Start of Day

I learned some things about myself!

When I was taking the JavaScript courses the other day, I was really struggling to understand why, and therefore what, we were learning.

I kept thinking that I was either just too burnt out (a possibility) or just not able to understand it in general. The last one seems drastic but it went through my mind. The instructors were doing a lot to make the courses digestible and still I was struggling.

Then today, I was taking the HTML courses and it suddenly hit me what was wrong!

After I took the first HTML course back in week one, I mentioned that HTML and CSS just kinda made sense to me. I was thinking that maybe it was from my blogging experience. After today, I think that's true.

The one thing the JavaScript courses never did is explain why we were doing the things we were. There wasn't a real world example for me to tack it to.

So!

I will take some time this next week to check for videos on YouTube to show me what JavaScript is really used for. C# made more sense to me because I had an idea of what I was using it for. The first few times I saw it was talking about game dev stuff. I knew why we were doing the things because they were showing what was happening to the game itself.

I need a Homebase to trace it to and get oriented. Otherwise I'm just trying to store all the info and I don't have a system to put it into...so it's either not in one and just chaos, or it's copied into about 7 lol. That's it's own special chaos.

If this works and I get a better understanding of JS, then I'll go back and re-watch those courses to make sure I really grasp it.

I did get a small combo of HTML and CSS today. Most of today was planning and gauging how much time I want to spend and doing what. 😋

I'm trying not to edit these too much because I want to keep it as real as possible.

Dev Diaries, Masterlist

Romancing the Process...coming soon

June 4, 2023

The Day number will just be a log number as I may not do Dev stuff every day. I'll be including the dates though.

Now that I have a month to take classes, I'm going to be a bit more strategic with what I'm taking and when. I want to get the most out of this 😊

For the Dev side, I'm going to finish up the bigger courses that I wasn't able to get into before. They will mainly be HTML and CSS. There are a couple of them that have intros to Python and the like. I have already had a little bit of Python in other courses, so I'm kinda looking forward to that one and more C# 😁 that's the one I'll be learning for my game dev stuff.

For the Diaries though...

I'm thinking about having a separate Design Diary (non-web design) and Doodle Diary because I'm also going to be working on those. I mainly want to so I can find things easier later but also... so I remember what all I'm doing now 😂😋

I am starting Romancing the Process! Which is just a diary of all the crazy stuff I'm learning, trying, and just my story as I experience it. I think it's gonna be fun (for me at least lol)

My goal for this month is to be as job ready as I possibly can be! I'm going to be purging my belongings as well in case I need to move. This will trick my brain into cleaning which is useful even if I don't move 😅 I'll be going over this more in Romancing the Process. I am trying to get a balance of input (learning) and output (creating). This is gonna be so much fun!!!!

Weekly DevPlan:

Courses to Tackle for the Week (starts Monday, today is bonus)

Improve UX Prototyping

HTML

CSS

Soft Dev

Full-stack Dev

1 Class at a time! 😊

The prototyping course is introductions to a bunch of tools you can use. It's kinda boring to start but then I turn into a child when they start the actual prototyping part 😂🤣 It's so much fun and I can't wait to get to play...I mean...use them.

I won't be doing each of these every day. They are in order of importance. I want to get the first three done this week. The bottom two be the least important and can take all month if need be lol

I've already done a prototyping course but it's super close to being completely done. I've almost exhausted their library of UX stuff 😅🥰 This is the last fuller course they have for it. After that it's just shorter courses that I plan to filter in.

"This just in, nothing happened like it was supposed to, but everything is better...?"

Dev Diaries, Masterlist

So, this has been a weird day!

I crammed so many courses in this morning! It was all graphic design and brand identity stuff, because... fun! But then at 2pm, when the subscription was supposed to end, it didn't lol.

My overly tired butt read a 7 as a 2...so I had an extra 5 hours. Nice! More courses got taken.

BUTT THEN!!!

At 7 they extended my subscription for another month??!!! How? Why? No idea! But I'm so very grateful. Exhausted, but grateful.

I'm going to take the rest of the day off from courses, maybe 2-3 days 😅😂 I need a break. I want more of a plan this time now that I know what direction I'm heading towards. 😊🥰

ALSO!

I met with a mentor today!!! I'm so excited she was so nice and helpful. She is currently in one of the roles that I am particularly interested in so it's all lining up beautifully.

R.I.P to all those other course providers that are on hold for another month 🤣

Although, I'm probably gonna sprinkle some of them in as needed...because I know me.

I don't think even one thing has gone as planned this whole time😅😁 but that's ok. Having a plan is hard to do when you are in new territory. I love that the tech community is so welcoming and helpful. So many resources available even if you never speak to a person directly.

I think that even if I decided I didn't want to do any of this after all (not happening, but go with it) I would be so glad that I got to experience what these groups are like. I hope other industries start doing things this way! 🥰