First 6 months as a DEVELOPER (Destined to beginners)
Tags: android, kotlin, java, motivation
Published: 2019-07-11 16:12:29

Hello everybody, my name is Lucas! I'm 20 years old and I'm a Mobile Developer Trainee. 

You may be asking yourself: "What kind of post is this?"... So I tell you! I've been working with mobile development for a while now and I would like to share with you how it is, what kind of difficulties I've been through since I began and how to keep motivating yourself to keep growing up. So take a cup of coffee/tea and let me tell you a few things.

As many people, I also didn't know which programming language I should've learnt at first. 

I began like most of the people: Went to the university, learnt the basics(HTML, CSS, SQL, C, Java). But even after all that I wasn't sure yet which side I would choose to work with (Mobile or Web). The truth is that you don't have and you may not choose a side. 

After learning the basics of programming you will be able to understand almost everything in every language, it doesn't matter if your application is destined to IOS, Android, Web, Desktop or if it's a script.

#**Tips**

I'm not an expert, a Senior developer, but if there's a few tips that I can give to you, I would say:

- **Stay focused**, no matter what! Do you remember that MMORPG that you used to play day'n night and you were the best player of your neighborhood? The same focus rule must be applied here!;

- **Try different languages** and study it concepts(more knowledge = versatile person);

- **Don't be ashamed** to ask and question. Communication is the key for almost everything nowadays; 

- **Failure** is an important step that may not be skipped. Trust me, you will fail many times trying to create new features, implementing new stuff that you've never heard before... But, if you're really into it, you won't let it drag you down. You may keep questioning, searching and giving time to the time, learn how to program won't come from nowhere;

- **Practice everyday**, every new concept, and be proud of what you've been accomplishing.

- Last but not least, **take your time** to absorve everything you're learning... Enjoy a quick walk outside, play some games, hangout with your friends and get a hobby.

Ok, ok... Those are some useful tips, but let me tell you my experience with that:

#**First Month**

I felt so happy that finally i'd be able to learn with more experienced developers and improve my development skills considerably as-well. Did pair programming with someone that showed me the whole code and taught me some new stuff.

The best part of it is that you're going to learn new things almost everyday.

#**Second to Third Month**

I learned a ton of new things and concepts, got better in my programming logic and was able to take some tasks that were considerably more difficult than the first one I got.

#**Fifth Month ahead**

Again, as always, learned a lot of new things, was able to talk about more complex concepts with the other developers, started new personal projects and felt way more confident about what I had to do on the day-by-day inside the company.

#**Last thoughts**

I think that, after all, programming isn't much different than any other thing that you're trying to learn... If you want to be an E-Sports professional player, for example, you must expend at least 10 thousand hours to be considered a Pro. Making this analogy may help you as it helped me during this short time. Once you have your mind set, everything is possible.

Everyday I had questions(I still do), and Google was/is my main tool to solve them, just like my team partners.

Indeed you will learn faster when practicing with someone by your side helping you, telling the best practices to implement, explaining architectures and flows, but the most important part of it, **the hardest work MUST come from you**. That's the main reason why I consider I've learned many things so fast, and I still learning everyday, with everyone.

#**Conclusion**

That's it! Hope I can be helping someone with this post and, please, let me know how was your experience when you joined the dev world, I would love to know!

Last but not least, sorry if there's any mistake regarding the English language. My English will always be a work in progress.

And if you still here... **DON'T GIVE UP!**