Breaking into the industry: My journey to becoming a Software Engineer #2
Confession: I have been learning how to code for the past six months.
I recently discovered from my mentor that since I am going the “self-taught” route, I basically have to put myself out of my comfort zone. I learned that writing blogs, sharing my journey and most importantly sharing my portfolio online no matter how tiny the project, is the way to go to get exposure to the industry.
How did I get started?
There are TONS of resources online. I started with Codecademy’s Learn Python 3 course and completed it. It was a great learning experience especially for a person that have never written a piece of code before.
Additionally, to supplement any gaps that was missing while completing Codecademy’s Python 3 course, I also read Python Fundamentals by by Ryan Marvin, Mark Ng’ang’a, Amos Omondi:
Then I came across Udemy’s 100 Days of Code — The Complete Python Pro Bootcamp 2021 by none other than Angela Yu. THIS course changed life. I am glued to this course, and I cannot stop. Angela offers not just real-world projects, but most importantly they are fun and engaging! I am currently on Day 60/100. I will be sharing projects that I completed in this course, and also my side-projects. After every project completion in Angela’s course, I usually create my own project related to the topic at hand to get more practice and experience, and of course, it’s just fun making these projects! It keeps me going.
Furthermore, I am aware that it is very important to learn Algorithms and Data Structure. Therefore, I have also been reading Problem Solving with Algorithms and Data Structures using Python by Bradley N Miller and David L. Ranum:
