What I've learned and done after 1 year on DEV!
Tags: devjournal, writing
Published: 2023-09-30 18:00:00

On September 27th last year I joined the wonderful DEV community and found dozens of amazing blog posts and articles that would forever help me learn how to code! The next day I also wanted to make blog posts that would help others learn and show others my experience. After a few days, I finally made my first blog about nav bars! Even though it didn't get many likes I was still excited about making more posts! Over time as my web dev skills grew the number of posts I made grew as well and looking back after a year I've gotten to pretty nice places!

###Acheivments
- Making blogs for **16 weeks straight!**
- more than **2000 followers**, double my expectations!
- **3** completed web projects
- **233 bookmarks** on my reading list, because I just love learning new stuff 😅

Overall being part of the DEV community and contributing to it is such a nice experience to be passionate about, so I don't plan on stopping!
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# What I've learned

##Quality over Quantity
Back when I was looking to reach an 8-week streak one of the main things I loved about making blogs was the amount of likes I could get. So, every time I made a blog post I believed that whether it was good or not was based on the number of views and likes it had. It was a nice way to motivate me at first, but over time I felt burnt out from trying to make new blogs based on small new things I learned just to be disappointed by the views or likes. That's when I realized, the entire point of wanting to be a DEV blogger wasn't for the likes, but to showcase my experience. 

To any new people on DEV or just people who haven't made a blog post yet but want to, whether your blog gets popular or not it's alright. What matters more is the quality of the posts, the descriptions, the images, the code examples, all of those. Sure, having lots of likes and views would be beneficial in some ways, but that doesn't mean your posts are horrible. As you gain experience in the tech world you'll make more blogs, some will be popular, and some won't, but whatever the case you should show your skills in those posts. Over time as lots of people, maybe even job recruits, see your posts they'll be more interested in you, that's when you get to the level of lots of likes and views.
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##Practical writing skills
When you make a good number of blogs, you'll gain a good amount of practical writing experience as well. As I made more blogs I reviewed my content and saw what was wrong with it, was it too long and descriptive? Are there not enough examples? Is the grammar professional? Reviewing your drafts and posts like this is like changing the sensitivity bar on your mouse until it's just right! You'll need to find the right writing style that'll help everybody learn, whether inexpensive or professional.
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#Plans
I should really plan on making more web projects, sure I've made some designs, but I should actually show more of my web development skills. I should also be a bit more consistent in learning computer science even though I'm already a bit busy with high school. 
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##Conclusion
Making this blog is a great reflection of too far I've gone and what I've learned, but now that I've done that all I should look at are the next steps to my web dev journey!