When I started attending a coding bootcamp(Thinkful), I had written a blog post on dev.to about how much of a hard time I was having grasping programming concepts. I received many kind comments from different people, encouraging me to continue learning, and continue writing about my experiences or any projects I may have been working on.

Because of my background in fashion, somebody even suggested a nice project for me to work on that incorporated the new skills I'm learning, with my old skills. Reading the project idea made me think "yeah right, I will never be smart enough to do a project like that, much less blog about it."

After those two blog posts, I didn't write again. But reading them now, almost 3 years later, I can see how much I have grown, in confidence and skill.

Coding bootcamps give you the practical skills to perform as a software developer, but the pace of the teaching is faster than anyone can handle. I felt as if I was drowning, and "learning in public" was the last thing I was worried about. How could I show that I was "learning" anything when it took me months to understand the material? And when I graduated the bootcamp, my focus was on landing a job. While trying to sharpen my skills to be interview ready, and have a different project to show on my resume, I fell down the rabbit hole that is JavaScript after JavaScript tutorials. I was ashamed to write/document anything I was doing because I was essentially copying somebody else's work. I have made many a-GitHub repositories private because of this!

Now that I have the skills and knowledge I need to work on projects, I have encountered another problem: I change my mind too often, and have started many projects, which you guessed it, are all hidden repositories on Github... yup, yup. I want to be able to learn everything, everywhere all at once! But my issue is that I take on too many tasks at once, thinking I can accomplish them all, if only I just lose sleep. I've been following this "learning in public" advice since the beginning of 2023, and I am a bit embarrassed because of all the things I picked up, and put down just like my toddler when he is bored. I received advice from somebody on TikTok, that even though I change my mind so often, I should still document what I am learning (or building) because maybe there is somebody out there that relates to what I am going through, and might appreciate my working style. But there is also the added layer that I do not like being perceived, I am painfully shy, and I will only open up to few people.

This year though, I have decided to commit to the bit! I even created a YoutTube channel (please watch, and leave only nice comments).

Yes I am a bit scattered brain when it comes my personal projects and working on my portfolio. But I have finally come up with a project that allows me to learn the many different technologies that I want to learn, as well as other programming languages. Instead of doing many little side projects that showcase my skill, but that I am not necessarily passionate about, I have decided to return to the idea of combining my fashion design background with my newfound love for software development. I am very excited to start documenting the process from start to (hopefully) finish. I may create a Todo app just to show that I am able to do that, but with this project I am really going to push myself! Not just in the technology I use, but also learning more computer science that I know (which is none-- don't ask about big O please).

"Learning in public is fun!" I will keep telling myself, and maybe I'll start believing it, like everybody else.