Dancer to Dev - Journey of a self taught developer

Focus this week: This week has been about maths and how it relates to software engineering. After trying out JavaScript challenges I realised I needed to brush up on my basic maths knowledge. For a lot of people (including me) when you hear the word “algebra” or “equations” it can cause a feeling of panic and dread, especially if it is something that you don’t use regularly. However, actually looking back at these maths topics as an adult has made me realise they are perhaps not as daunting as I once thought. In fact, I would even say I have quite enjoyed the process of relearning topics I hadn’t covered since school.  I think this comes down to a mixture of the great resources out there (especially apps such as khan academy and brilliant that give you the ability to access and complete short lessons daily wherever you may be), as well as coming to it from a new perspective, as a tool that will aid me rather than another subject on the timetable. So for those of you who still

  Focus this week: This week I have been exploring CSS animations. I briefly came across these when creating my Dog Face Mash app (an app to compare pictures of cute dogs 😊). Check it out here https://dog-face-mash.herokuapp.com/ Since then, I had mainly been focusing on JavaScript and React when I came across Scrimba’s 7-day CSS challenge. Each day you receive a new challenge to complete and this featured a few animation challenges which sparked my interest on delving into this topic further. Animations are a great way to help with the user experience of your apps and direct attention to particular areas. They are also pretty fun to create, even when it's just a simple fade in! So my week has been looking into keyframes, transitions and transforms….hoping to become more animated in future projects!   Things to check out: https://scrimba.com/course/gcssanimations  - covers how to start using animations, using challenges to help you practice. https://thoughtbot.co

I never thought I wanted to learn to code, in fact it is probably something that would have never even crossed my mind had I not found myself in search of a new career. Let me give you a quick background, I was a dance teacher and I loved my job but the hours were sporadic and I felt I lacked career progression. I wanted a challenge, a career I could work my way up in and something I could see myself still doing as I got older. That’s where coding came in. Well, to be honest it came a year and a half later after a short spell in recruitment and turning back to teaching, still trying to find that new career. It was my boyfriend who convinced me to take a look into web development, he himself being a software engineer experienced first-hand how much of a rewarding career it could be if not just the challenge I was looking for. Fast forward to now and with the hit of COVID-19, I found myself like a lot of people in a very different situation, with a very different outlook and a need