2020 isn't typically what one might consider a good year with covid, several losses and disasters. But the beauty of the human race is its ability to make the most of what it has been given. I had doubts about writing an article about this but I want to start writing more so here's a summary of what made this year despite all its issues, my year of accomplishment.

The beginning

🎶 Inserts suspense tracks 🎶

My year started okay with my convocation, leaving school and all those but then lockdown arrived and put a stop to my not so planned plans 🤷🏽‍♀️. I spent my days at home doing nothing, gaining nothing ( not even weight 🤦🏽‍♀️ ). I was stuck in this weird cycle of waking up, watching anime, using my phone and sleeping. I was sometimes productive, doing some web scraping with python but somehow the zeal I had of being active and starting a career in tech was sitting at the back burner on extreme low heat. The god of procrastination was building a castle on my bed and I didn't care. "I'll do it tomorrow" became weeks and then months. When I finally decided to pick myself up, I was questioning my career choices.

The slap into reality

As I always insist that communities and friends are a good thing, especially in tech. I voiced out my concerns about being idle to some friends and I was confronted with the question, what is your career choice? And in my exact words, I was like " I want to code, I guess" . Yeah, pretty vague answer 🤦🏽‍♀️. I was told, "Don't guess, know".

Anyways, to cut it short, I had to confront my career choices and ended up choosing Frontend development, mostly because I was already on that path and I loved color. ( Yes, I'm a child 😌). And so began my journey towards the path of JavaScript, HTML and my best worst love CSS.

🎶 Inserts quest soundtrack preferably from The Hobbit: an unexpected journey 🎶

I was improving my vanilla JavaScript on one side and contributing to an open source React JS project on another side. I figured I might as well be too busy to even think of procrastinating.

Getting Serious

I started slowly, making cards, improving my conversation and general conception of design. I then moved over to consuming APIs and it really wasn't as hard as my mind was trying to make me believe. I was getting somewhere and I had a goal in mind; a career in tech wouldn't just happen, I had to make it happen.

I started applying for jobs everywhere, with my make shift resumé 😅 and an edited gatsby template for a portfolio site ( PS: I'm still using that template 👀 ). I got so many rejections but that didn't faze me. I was on a roll 💪🏿. A few months later I happened to see a job offer looking for Frontend Developers and I put myself out there, did the test, had an interview and got in. The good news started rolling in from june, I got accepted to be a chapter lead for She Code Africa Minna and August was just perfect because I was finally where I wanted to be, I have a tech job, working with a great team and a great boss while also impacting communities.

For all the times I was accused of using my laptop and not doing chores, I could actually show them that I waa getting something out of "playing with my laptop". Also, payday 😁, payday felt like I was given a treasure chest. There's really nothing as fulfilling as getting a reward for your hard work.

Growing with work

On personal development, I with the help of course was able to improve my HTML, CSS and JavaScript skills. Big ups to all the companies that take in junior developers because the sweet part is the number of technology I was introduced to and able to improve just by working. In a less than half a year, I've worked with Typescript React JS Styled-components Electron Material UI Graphql It's a little too cliche if I say I had no sad days, but I really didn't. I'm having the time of my life and I don't plan on slowing down.

Coffee side

The lessons I got out of this year:

• Communities are great and we should all try to utilize them.
• Life will surely play with you but it's also up to you to slap some sense into life. (Poetic, I know 😏).
• Growth is still growth, no matter how slow it happens. What matters is that it is actually happening.

A major clog in my path was a secret not so secret inferiority complex that wanted to take root in my mind, it probably doesn't really go away but there's a work around I use and recommend.

Make a list of everything you know now that you didn't know two years ago; no matter how little. Try to attach timelines to each item on the list and by the time you step back and look at your items, you'll realize you've been growing and be able to squash the feeling of being less before it starts growing.

My 2020 pride

Links

• https://slkhadeeja.github.io/frontend-mentor/task1/
• https://slkhadeeja.github.io/frontend-mentor/task2/
• https://slkhadeeja.github.io/frontend-mentor/task3/
• https://slkhadeeja.github.io/frontend-mentor/task4/
• And this site, https://dees-dev-diary.netlify.app/

Improvements

• HTML
• CSS
• JavaScript
• React JS

First time

• Typescript
• Gatsby JS
• Styled-components
• Electron
• Material UI
• Graphql

This year wasn't really the best from humanity's point of view but from my lens, it wasn't that bad 😃.