Journey to My New Career: An Introduction
Tags: beginners, webdev, blogging, career
Published: 2019-07-08 01:05:27

##Getting Started##

This is it. I decided at the beginning of June 2019 to finally take coding seriously and get to work studying code, practicing what I've learned, and building projects.

If you care to stick along I'd really appreciate it! I will be writing once a week to start so be sure to give me a follow if you are interested.

###Why Write About It?###

I decided to write about my journey for a few reasons:

<ol>
<li><b>Document what I am working on</b></li>
    Instead of boring my girlfriend with whatever I am working on that day or week, I thought it better to write it down - think of it almost like a journal! Except for the fact that you don't have to deal with my horrendous handwriting.
<li><b>Reflect on what I've done</b></li>
    There will be times where I feel like I've made no progress or can't <em>really</em> see what I've been working on. This will act as a way for me to see what I've learned - kind of like taking progress pictures when losing weight.
<li><b>Help others looking to make a change</b></li>
    While I know this is said a lot, if I can do it you can do it. I, like many others, went to college for something completely unrelated to what I am pursuing now and am so dedicated and passionate about starting this career. Perhaps you just started your own journey or you're thinking about dipping your feet into web programming, either way I hope I can help.
<li><b>Something for future employers</b></li>
    If, by some chance, a future employer is looking at my social media platforms I want them to see this as a sort of time capsule. They can see how I've grown and keep up to date with what I'm working on in a different capacity than GitHub or my <a href="https://www.ryanfurrer.dev/" target="_blank">portfolio site</a> will allow.
</ol>

Now that we have that out of the way, let me introduce myself more thoroughly.

###More About Me###

I went to college for Music Education & Performance, my main instrument was Viola. I've been playing for just under 20 years and it's an amazing thing, music. I never finished my degree and bounced around from job to job never <em>loving</em> what I did.

That's where coding comes in. I've always been interested in it and threw around the idea of a few different careers in the last year before settling on Front-End Web Development - here they are in order:

<ul>
<li><b>Front-End Web Development</b></li>
<li><b>Network Security</b></li>
<li><b>AWS Solutions Architect</b></li>
<li><b>...Front-End Web Development</b></li>
</ul>

I suppose part of my desire to work on the front-end is the ability to create and be imaginative in what I create. 

###What I'm Working On###

I am currently working on my portfolio site - it's ever expanding and something I'm not sure I'll truly feel is ever "finished." Beyond my own website I am working on a few sites for local businesses including a brewery, an environmental company, and a food business. 

I am also learning Vanilla JavaScript and will eventually move onto React, however, I want to have a <em>solid and thorough</em> understanding of JS before adding on any libraries. I'm learning via <a href="https://teamtreehouse.com/" target="_blank">Treehouse</a>, <a href="https://www.freecodecamp.org/" target="_blank">freeCodeCamp</a>, and my own practicing of what I learn.

I often equate learning coding languages to learning music and incorporate similar practice techniques - it's something I'm very thankful for having learned.

###Let's Wrap This Up###

So that's me in a nutshell. I'll probably write another post in the 1st half of this week to bring you all up to speed with what my site looked like before it's redesign this past week. 

If you stuck around this long I seriously thank you for reading and hope you'll come back for more!