I'm new to blogging and to coding so if this post is super cringe, I forgive myself in advance and I apologise to you for putting you through reading this.

I accepted the #100DaysOfCode challenge from a freeCodeCamp email I'm subscribed to. One of the requirements of the challenge is to write three blog tutorials on technologies I have learnt on Hashnode. I haven't learnt any yet, that will start tomorrow but I thought I'd flex my writing muscle and get comfortable on all the platforms I'll be using.

Why

I'm a finance graduate and it took me a decade of experience to realise that I don't really want to do that anymore, at manual level at least. I did manage to work my way into a development team as a software tester at a previous job. I really enjoyed working in Tech so when I was retrenched (for covid reasons) last year, I took it as a divine sign to pursue a technical career that can fully utilise my creativity and innate ability to be productive sans pants. Seriously though, being able to work anywhere being a huge priority for me since the pandemic. I also wanted to acquire a skill set I could apply in my personal capacity through my own projects.

Now

I write this on the eve of Day 1 of my #100DaysOfCode. I'm so excited to begin and have done the following in preparation:

• Created a Github profile and repos for each study topic
• Created a Hashnode profile, and posted my first blog (will be complete at the time you're reading this)
• Created a Twitter account (not too proud of this one)
• Downloaded CS50 course materials for offline accessibility
• Applied for a Udacity Data Analytics Scholarship, accepted to the 1st phase (challenge)
• Acquired books on all the topics I would like to learn
• Registered for all online courses to achieve my goal

Too much

I definitely feel like I'm being over ambitious with my learning goals, but I'm willing to take on quite a bit initially to fail and adjust downwards when it gets to hectic but this is what I would like to learn:

• Web development (freeCodeCamp curriculum), first priority for employ-ability but mostly to implement the many ideas I have
• CS50 for basic computing knowledge
• Python programming, this will work well with my prior testing knowledge as the QA industry is (has been) moving towards test automation in a big way
• SQL because data is important and I feel like there will always be a need for people who understand how to work with it. Also the database team at my last tech job had an average age of 60 years so there may be some sustainable job prospects here.

A third heading

I don't know what else to right really, this is mostly like a diary entry I'm publicising. I've created a backlog containing all the lectures, chapters and exercises I hope to cover over the next semester in Zenkit projects. This lets me plan a weekly To-Do list I can practice AGILE and SCRUM on, it looks like this:

I also created a daily timetable, which is subject to a lot of change but will work for now to keep me on track. That looks like this:

I'm on Slack to communicate with the Udacity community for the Data Analytics challenge. I'll be going through the Odin Project and FreeCodeCamp materials for Web Development materials. FreeCodeCamp's Python for Everyone course on YouTube for , well , Python. CS50 course is on EdX and SQL will be an intro course also on YouTube from Coding with Mosh.

Thank you for reading this. I hope it was of some value to you, and killing time counts. I'll post here again when I have some thing to teach or come across something cool, but possible also to just vent or track my progress.

All the best to everyone doing #100DaysOfCode and any one else beginning the new year with any self improvement project!

Shout out to my tech crushes in no particular order CoderCoder, Sharon Yitbarek and Ania Kubow and Sunshine In My Code.

Ben Awad needs a mention as an inspiration too, like what is that guys problem... Shout to Florin Pop, Kyle at WebDev Simplified, Kevin Powell and Mosh Hamedani. Thank you all for being positive influences and quality content creators.

Joshua 1:9