Reflecting on my Phase 1 Project

At the end of my fourth week as a Software Engineering student and at the completion of a first major project — a web application integrating Javascript, HTML and CSS — I can safely say I definitely have had my challenges, highs and lows and a lot of late nights.

Four weeks ago, was my first time being introduced to front-end development and it has been a whirlwind and I have hit the ground running. I’ve crammed as much as I could in 4 weeks and there is still plenty to go… All coming to a culminating to the phase 1 project.

This project brought on confrontational realities for me and feelings on knowing just how far I have to go to not only master my front-end skills but to be relatively mediocre, but I am endeavouring to trust the process as I go through the course.

The project was incredible practice to really put to work what I’ve been learning and more. It unveils how much of content is being retained and where the gaps in your knowledge is and are.

My first challenge was what project to do, what theme, what concept. This was a struggle as to how to use API’s and code to bring my ideas to life and this is all part of truly understanding what code and programming can do. Then, once that is all conceptualised, pushing your knowledge to the limit to implement the ideas.

One thing for sure is that there are no amount of reading or labs that can get one ready to develop a web app from start to end, it takes a lot of practice, a lot of googling, a lot of wafting through ambiguity and I’ll be honest, it does not always feel comfortable being in the deep end. Being crunched for time to learn and execute.

But who signs up to a bootcamp, expecting a picnic, right?