Changing Lanes

This last week I think could be best classified as transitional. Some things that I had been working on for awhile came to an end and I started at the very beginning of new endeavors.

Photo by Asaf R on Unsplash

Roguelike Game

Finished is actually a pretty strong word here. Like many kinds of projects the desire to keep improving and adding stuff to it is always there. I think for me it’s stronger here because it’s a game. I’ve played games pretty much my entire life so it’s not hard to imagine new features or levels or better graphics or better balancing or more variety or better UI or whatever else… If I was ever going to finish this project I had to stay focused on what I actually was doing.

I had to remember what the game represented: A working knowledge of React.js. This was the final React project for the Data Visualization Certificate and by far the most difficult. freeCodeCamp has very clear requirements for marking the project as complete. This was helpful! My strategy was to just tick off those boxes one at a time and try not to get lost in the details of the game.

Eventually I got them all ticked and submitted my version of the game! I’m happy to finally be done with it. I had started it back in December… Not that I’ve been working on it for 4 months straight. Last week I discussed in further detail about the other things I’ve been doing if your interested.

While it did check all the boxes to be submitted there are a couple of things that I want to do better before putting it in my portfolio. Firstly, it’s not very visually appealing. The layout is just good enough. I feel like there’s a lot of improvement that could be had in that area. Secondly, I feel how I implemented the “darkness” that covers most of the playable area could be done better or more elegantly. Here’s the repository and the game if you want to check it out and potentially weigh in!

Ultimately my goal is to move ahead and get that certificate so I’ll polish it up over time.

Grow with Google

The final day for this portion of the scholarship was 4.11.18. I had completed the content a couple months earlier so I spent the day double checking that it was complete and networking.

Since then Udacity has actually done some pretty cool things while we all wait to hear whether or not we were accepted into phase 2! Phase 2 is where we can earn what Udacity calls a “nanodegree” specializing in mobile web. We find out on 4.17.18.

The day after the scholarship officially ended they had what they called a “Reverse AMA” session. Periodically through out course the community leaders would have an “AMA” session. (I think it stands for ask me anything. I don’t remember specifically though!) This is where all the students could ask questions and the community leaders would answer them. It generally wasn’t technical questions though. They wanted us to rely on each other / research for those. It was more admin type stuff. Well in this version they asked US questions. It was basically a survey to get feedback from our experience. It was a cool experience to be able to share what we thought could be done to improve the course in real time with our fellow students.

They also added some new course work for us to keep us busy. It focuses on looking for jobs in the tech industry. It’s actually really good! As of writing this I haven’t completed it yet but it poses questions about your goals and needs from a job and helps you visualize a clearer path to landing a job. I really appreciate the fact that they are not only teaching us new skills but are also focusing on how to get a career using those skills.

Along those lines Udacity has also had two webinars focused on that topic. The first one was called Roadmapping and Career Support with Trinh. As far as I can tell it covered a lot of the same things that were added to our course work. Very helpful and good perspective! The second one was called Kathleen from Udacity: Crafting a Killer Resume. This one focuses on creating a resume (surprise surprise) and a little about building your own brand. It was full of specific do’s and don’ts. This one really resonated with me since this week I’ve been upping my job hunt intensity.

Job Hunt

Not that long ago someone had posted in the GwG forums asking what people were planning on doing after the scholarship. I had responded basically saying I’d continue to study and get serious about my job hunt. Honestly I think my job hunt accounts for most of my productivity this week!

I started off by taking a serious look at my resume. I had lunch with a friend of mine that’s a graphic designer not that long ago (check her out at mycreativecondition.com!) and she had offered to look over my resume and give me some tips. So I took her up on it! We collaborated on it a little bit and she had some great ideas. We implemented most of them and she touched up the over all style. I’m very pleased with the results and her input.

Next I had to start getting my fancy new resume out there!

“Confetti flying over the attendees of a concert at Dockville Festival” by Pablo Heimplatz on Unsplash

I’ve always had a hard time applying to places… Things like imposter syndrome or feeling unqualified or just a general lack of confidence has always stopped me from putting myself out there. Not that those things are getting much better but I’ll never get a job unless I do! So I started hunting and applying.

I pulled some number out of the air and decided: 10! That’s how many places I want to apply to a week. 2 a day. Not that hard right? Well I applied to 7. I’m pretty happy with that considering I just made up some number without really investigating. It actually got pretty difficult finding places at about day 3. Maybe I’m still being too conservative as to where I’m willing to put an application in still? I’ll just keep pushing forward though. Worst case: I never hear back. Best case: I finally get off the forklift!

D3.js

So now that I’m done with the React.js portion of the Data Visualization Certificate it’s onto D3.js. It stands for “Data-Drivin Documents.” So graphs and other cool ways to interact with and visualize data. So far I’ve pulled some data down and turned it into a Bar Chart. Here’s the repository!

It’s far from done. Right now it’s just a gray square with some black lines on it… It’s only one sitting worth of work and my first taste of the framework so I’m ok with that. I got a lot of help following along a couple of Medium articles on the topic. (Learn D3.js in 5 minutes and How to create your first bar chart with D3.js) I altered the steps slightly to utilize the data set that I was pulling down but everything in those articles applied to what I was doing. Another resource on the topic that I just started comes from freeCodeCamp’s Beta site. It gives you some info then has you solve a small problem slowly teaching you the features of the framework. If you’ve ever done any of their curriculum your familiar with the process! Just remember if you decide to check it out it is in Beta still.

I’ve got a lot to keep working at and I’m doing my best to regularly document this journey. I think this process does play some sort of role in keeping me on a forward trajectory so I’ll try to keep it up.

I originally published this on Medium