Hey everyone I'm Temi and welcome to my youtube channel, where I'll be discussing all things coding,
careers and my lifestyle. And in this particular video, I'm going to be talking about the 100 days of
code challenge. And if you don't know what that is, it's a challenge where you commit to coding
for 100 hundred days straight, where you code for at least an hour a day. So on this video I'm going
to be going over the technical and non-technical things I learned, as well as the projects I built
and also I'll be addressing some questions I got on Instagram. And if you don't already follow me
on there you can find my Instagram handle here as well as Twitter and my other social media so make
sure to follow me on there. So a quick overview of my tech background, I didn't know any coding
language properly before I started this. I had an idea of Python and MATLAB because I have an
undergraduate degree in geology and physics so in my second year of physics I learnt Python. But
the lecture kind of threw a manual at us and said 'do the assignment'. So I knew how to use Python for
assignments, I didn't really know Python. So during my master's a few years later, I learned MATLAB.
I took a computational module where we used MATLAB for data visualization and I really enjoyed that
so that's kind of how I got into tech. I'm on a technology graduate scheme and I'm currently a
graduate software developer. So the main reason I decided to do this challenge was to really
prepare me for the role which I have now started. So the first non-technical thing I learnt was to be
aware of your learning style. If you're learning in a way that suits you best, you're way more likely
to stick to the challenge and actually finish it. So for me I'm a visual learner which means
I learn best by seeing things done in front of me, therefore I decided to follow some Udemy courses and
also YouTube tutorials. So I would just really suggest you find out what your learning style is and adapt
your learning to that. The second thing I learnt was to prioritize time. I'm aware that some people
might have kids, hobbies or full-time jobs but the main thing is to set aside a realistic amount of
time every day - if you know you can only do half an hour, commit to that half an hour. For me the
best time to code was actually straight after work. And once I got used to coding at a specific time
every day I was way less likely to skip days because it became part of my everyday routine
that just felt odd or weird if I wasn't coding. So the third thing is to structure your learning.
Have a plan before you sit down and you decide to start coding, that way you have something to
work towards and you're determined to finish it and make sure that plan is achievable. The fourth
thing is to make notes as you go. This kind of goes without saying. It just means that you're putting
what you're learning into your own words, which means you're more likely to retain and actually
understand the information. The fifth thing is to join a supportive platform that could be Twitter
it could be Instagram. So just join a platform where you can speak to other people if you need help you
can reach out to people and get advice from them. The next thing is to take breaks. I know this might
be a bit controversial given the rules of the challenge but if you're having an off day,
take a break. It's not going to diminish all the achievements you've made so far, the main goal of
the 100 days of code challenge is to make coding a long-lasting habit. So moving on to the section
that I'm sure you guys have been waiting for, the technical things I learnt. The first things
I learnt were front-end languages HTML, CSS and JavaScript. I followed two Udemy courses.
One was pure JavaScript and the other one was a full web developer boot camp kind of course. So
that included both frontend languages, backend languages and frameworks as well. And the reason
I chose these two courses is because the role I'm in now we actually used JavaScript and Node.js
and Express.js so I kind of wanted to structure my learning around my next role. But I would also
suggest if you're a beginner to start off with front-end. But if you guys want me to go into more
detail about what languages are best learn as a beginner, just let me know and I'll definitely do
that for you. And in terms of frameworks, I learnt Bootstrap 3, where you use HTML, CSS and JavaScript.
I also learnt react native. I took part in a month-long hackathon with four other girls.
So I was in a team of five and we built a prototype app. And then I also learned Express and Semantic UI.
So in terms of back-end, I learnt the command line, APIs and REST APIs. I learnt MongoDB, Mongoose
and also authentication. I also got familiar with Git and GitHub, so I learnt how to build
my own repositories, set up my own projects and also deploy projects to GitHub. And I also got
familiar with Postman, which is an application, which you use to test and debug HTTP API's. So
my main stack throughout this was MERN. So MongoDB, Express, React or React Native and also Node.js
So projects I created. What I created. So in total, I created five main projects. The first one was a
React Native App. As I mentioned earlier, I took part in a remote month-long hackathon. In May I
was in a team of five. Together we created a React Native app using only frontend technologies. So
we used HTML, CSS, JavaScript and React Native. The second thing I created was a static web page and
that was basically just a landing page and I used HTML, CSS and JavaScript again in Bootstrap.
I was just getting familiar with creating nav bars, the drop down menu as well and figuring out
how to make a website responsive. The next major project I built was a colour game project. So
that was an RGB colour guessing game, which was useful for practicing RGB colours if you're
not familiar with that. And again that was made using HTML, Javascript, CSS in Bootstrap 3. The
next major project I built was a restful blog application. So it was an application that lists
different books written by Black authors and that was built using Node.js, CSS and HTML and Semantic
UI. And the idea of that is it's just a blog where you have different book reviews and the user can
add a new book review, you can edit book reviews or you can delete book reviews. The last major project
I built was a Yelp camp site. So the idea of that it was a kind of website which lists different
campsites and you can find out information about it and navigate through the website. So now I'm
going to be answering the questions I got via Instagram. So the first question I got was,
when you get stuck where do you go, especially as a self-taught developer and if YouTube is still
confusing. I would usually maybe look for blogs online so I would just Google whatever the thing I was
having issues with was, most someone's written a blog on that. Or also like
I mentioned earlier, join supportive platforms so if you need help you could message people
in a discord group, in a slack group, on Twitter, on Instagram, I did that a lot! The next question I got
was, why did I decide to focus on backend? And like I said earlier, I'm a graduate software developer
and the team I'm in mainly deals with backend stuff, so that's API etc. all about good stuff. The
next question I got was how do I focus on one language a language that I can learn properly? I
think the best way to focus on one language is to have a plan. If you know that okay I want to learn
frontend, I want to the websites. The three main things that you really should be focusing on are
HTML, CSS and JavaScript. So I would then follow a course either online or through books or whatever
it is, focusing on one of those three. And then when you feel comfortable enough, when you feel
like you've understood, then I wouldn't move on. The next question was, how did you keep yourself so
motivated to finish the 100 days throughout? If you structure your learning, if you set aside some time
and also take breaks! I didn't code for a hundred days straight, I have a few days out here and there
when I wasn't feeling or if I was quite busy. Another question I got was after you learn all
the fundamentals, how do you know you're ready to move on to frameworks? Build projects! That's
really a good way to consolidate your learning. I remember in the beginning I was so caught up
with, oh I need to learn all the syntax, I need to make sure I know everything about JavaScript or
whatever it is. But the best way that you're going to learn is by doing things and by putting what you
want to add for work. So that was it guys. I hope this video was helpful. I really hope that if you were
considering learning how to code that you decide to take the leap and do that after watching this
video. And watch out for my future videos where I will be talking about how to get into tech without
computer science degree, postgraduate degrees, doing a masters whether or not it's right
for you, graduate jobs and everything in between. Don't forget to subscribe, like and comment. And
also hit the notification bell so anytime I put out a new video, you'll know straight away! Bye!