Showing Phase.
Tags: javascript, beginners
Published: 2024-01-02 17:48:25

<figure>
  <img src="https://images.fineartamerica.com/images-medium-large-5/the-road-ahead-black-and-white-douglas-barnard.jpg" alt="Trulli" style="width:100%">
  <figcaption>The Road Ahead-Black and White is a photograph by Douglas Barnard which was uploaded on February 16th, 2013</figcaption>
</figure>

## Ready?
In this post I'll be discussing my journey thus far as I conclude my Phase 1 course in Flatiron School. 

## What did I get myself into?
Let's be honest. The prep-work did not "prep" us for the mountain ahead. I'll admit, stepping into the software engineering realm for the first time built anxiety in a good way. Once prep-work was conquered with a few functions and objects becoming familiar Phase 1 was at the end of the road waiting for me with a toothpick in its mouth.

## The Struggle
Clearly, as I fought my way thru Phase 1, it felt like the Rocky vs Drago bout, guess who played rocky? Honestly, I'm not here to instill how tough the field of software engineering is. This has been the smartest decision I've made for myself. I signed up literally for a bootcamp, and its been very militant since. As tough as its been I've learned a valuable lesson which in turn made learning to code thanks to Flatiron School, awesome!

## Now I get it
Aside from learning to code. I've learned mental techniques which as a result made coding a sport in my mind. Nothing made sense until I kept showing up for practice, plain and simple. Once distractions got eliminated, I learned the syntax, once I applied the importance of knowing the fundamentals in JavaScript, it became a language that made more sense. Basically, I gave my undivided attention to bits and pieces of the phase and suddenly the phase started giving back to me.

## You're on your own, figure it out
My main question has always been, how does one memorize all of this information? I had nightmares of array iterators chasing me out of my home. I stopped having those once I faced them on one of my labs. Now I'm great friends with the for...of and forEach loops, since they're my go to's for iterating thru arrays. Overall, one has the tools in front of them to sharpen their skill as a software engineer you just need to apply yourself and have fun!

## Making it a habit
Coding got much more kindly when Flatiron School made me realize that once you make it a habit to code "anything" things start to make sense. The tools at your disposal begin to lose dust as your able to put them to good use. I became aware of this as soon as I began to get a passing check on a lab in Codecademy. I made it a habit to figure out more ways to write code and achieve the same passing result within the same page and thru the use of DevTools. Suddenly I was retaining the language, I was problem solving on my own and most importantly, having fun!

## To be continued
As I conclude my Phase 1 course in Flatiron School I reflect on how far I've gotten and I realize the amount of progress I've made has been insurmountable. I've gained so much confidence going thru the ups and downs on figuring out how to get a code to work, how to debug and how to stay in the fight, I mean look how it turned out for Rocky.