My journey from noob to FCC front end certificate

Hey, fellow campers. First of all happy new year to all of you and lots of prayers for your coding journey. I am writing this for people who were like me struggled with coding and need the motivation to achieve this superpower of 21’st century. Well, the story begins five years earlier. As part of my country’s mainstream culture, I took the field of engineering in university (You guess right I am from Pakistan) even though I didn’t have a clue if I really want that or not. Well, the first semester started and C++ was the first programming course waiting to confront me. It knocked my brains out of my head. I still remember how I tried to save my whole semester because of that subject. Long story short eventually I failed in C++ course. That was the first time I came to know that this for loop, if, function thing is not for me. Well on 2nd attempt I passed the subject with C grade. Then there is a whole tale of me vs coding during my 4 years of bachelors.

I graduated as a computer engineer in February of 2017 with an average CGPA and NO CODING SKILLS. I decided to go with networks, did some CISCO certifications and got my feet in computer networking world. Now the main part of the story begins. It was the month of July of this year when I started feeling kind of unsatisfied and distress with my self for being a computer engineer and not knowing coding. I was also not rejoicing the network field as it felt so easy or I think the right word is “much regular”. There were also other personnel factors for that reason. Well one day my friend called me and he was also a noob in my university days regarding coding and we had a chat about stuff. He told me he was currently working as a full-time front-end developer in a renowned software house. I was really surprised about him being a coder. Next morning I googled everything regarding pros and cons of being a developer, you know the usual stuff like ‘networking vs developer’, ‘Why coding is a better career’ etc. One week later I was resolute to give it a try because I thought that being only 21 years old is not that much of age and I can still give it a shot.

First of August I started learning to code. Codecademy was my first stop. Getting the basics from their I have found out about FCC. I was really impressed by the challenges and its course outline. I remember spending 7 to 8 hours daily on coding. Going through different youtube vids to grab the specific concepts related to Javascript. Taking a couple of unpaid udemy courses. Every time I couldn’t grasp a concept I banged my head on wall literally. For example, I recall after getting CSS codecademy course I started crying for the reason of not understanding about margin, padding, box model and all. Same goes for jquery, so every time I was going to a new framework or library or concept and cant understand it, what I do was cry, cursed my self for not being a genius and sometimes try to see some motivational videos. But every time that happened I grabbed my self up and started to practice the concept by coding even though I wasn’t willing to. In that process, I realized the most fundamental part of coding. It’s more practice than IQ or being a genius to be a coder. The problem is humans are impatient. We think that spending just 2 weeks will make us Pro level coder. That’s not the case. Even that’s not the case with any skill in the world. Persistence and practice is the only key period.

Eventually, after spending tons of hours of practice, 5 months later I got my Free code camp’s Front End certificate. It was an overwhelming feeling for me and literally if I look back to my university days I regret not giving programming a try at that time. Still, I am happy for this humble victory. Now even though I got my FCC certificate I still sometimes doubt my skills. I still sometimes think will I be a pro coder, I still think is that really a big deal and a prove that programming is my field. I think these kinda questions vary from person to person but will remain for everyone. Time is the only factor to answer all of this too. You just need to give your best with patience and persistence and practice. That’s the best advice I can give from my experience. Last and most importantly I would like to thanks @QuincyLarson for the opportunity to learn to programme. It’s not less than a blessing for aspiring developers. hope I can repay FCC soon in any form. This is my static personal portfolio website https://airasyaqub.github.io/Projects/Personel%20portfolio/index.html with links to their projects in it. Feel free to review and comments. Happy coding :slight_smile:

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Congratulations on your achievement and thank you for sharing your story with us.
Wish you a Happy New Year !!! :slight_smile:

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Congratulations on all your recent progress! It sounds like 2017 was a renaissance year for you! I’m thrilled that you’re getting so passionate about coding.

I enjoyed browsing your projects. They are really well-built :slight_smile:

As you continue to push forward with your skills, more and more opportunities will open up for you. Hang in there, and enjoy the coding!

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