I have been learning React for four days in preparation for my new job. I assumed it would be the most important technology to dive into. I was given a list of items that are used in the company but there’s no order of importance. So I chose something I had no familiarity with. And there are so many React positions out there! So I thought even if everything goes wrong I’ll be more employable by knowing it.
Lockdown
Australia is behind everyone else in the developed world due to lack of vaccines, so we entered lockdown again to contain an outbreak. Queensland is stopping for three days and that gave me a great opportunity to advance in my studies. In the last couple of days I sat studying for over eight hours on each day. I think it’s good preparation for my new job. I’ve been coding almost every day for two years, but except for the initial quarantine last year, I didn’t have many long days.
The Course
I have completed 24% of Academind’s React course. It just amazes me how a human being can be so brilliant as Max Schwarzmuller. The dept of his knowledge is just astounding and his communication skills the same. There’s an energy and flow to his voice that serve as the perfect vehicle for his immense intellect. I’m glad I joined Academind. I don’t plan to leave anytime soon.
I’m progressing relatively fast because I have an Angular background, but this time I’m doing every single exercise offered in the course. Most of them are tiny, simple, boring applications and I’m at least trying (with various degrees of success) to solve everything on my own before looking up the solution and it’s been super helpful. It’s so much better for retention to actually think things through in order to build these tiny apps instead of just always coding along.
Second Front
I’ve also added a smaller tutorial to complement Max’s gigantic course. It’s a simple CRUD application with Asp.NET backend using React. The idea is to see a working application in time for Monday. CodeAffection’s explanations aren’t so in depth, but his tutorials are very practical and good to quickly connect the dots. It’s also great that he always works with CRUD, which is such an essential component of most apps.
Anxiety
I have no idea what to expect of my first day at work. I’m trusting my managers are experienced in onboarding a new developer. There’s a mix of good and bad experiences for folks in their first job on Reddit and some of the “fail” stories are scary. But the guys I spoke to in my interview seemed great and I’m optimistic I’ll at least be treated well. If I’ll be able to do the job, that’s a different story.
In the next few days I’ll go as far as I can in React but I still want to have a look at some more C# stuff. I need to know more about generics and OOP principles and I don’t think it should wait.
Let’s see how it goes!