#tech journey

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?" 😅😂🤣

I have been looking for courses that help guide through the beginning stages of actually building a game in an Engine.

A Random tiktok video showed me Unity Learn, this isn't sponsored (obv) but it has been so helpful. I already feel more at ease inside Unity and I have barely started the courses.

It's also 100% free!!!

It shows you every piece of info, down to downloading Unity itself and all of the other things you need!

Truly so helpful!

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)

Dear Dev Diary, Masterlist

Day 5 start

Omg, what a day!

I finished the Graphic Design course!!!

I also finished the JavaScript part of the Frontend Dev course. Holy moly, 5 hours is such a long time!

There are only 3 videos left for the Frontend course now. I should be able to finish it tomorrow 😊

I should also get to fit some more chill ones in, like photography and logo design! Yay!!!

It’s gonna be short tonight cause I’m falling asleep 😴

What my screen wore-

The music is Nap-able hehehe

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.