Week 1 of starting on The Odin Project

Sooo...I am finally a whopping 18% done with the Foundations section!

Woohoo! I just finished setting up Git and Github.

Slowly, I'm getting the hang of my new schedule with the integration of dev study. I usually allot at least 2 hours into my study and use Pomodoro method, as well, to really focus on the lesson at hand.

My biggest blocker that I encountered this week is installing Linux. At first, I wanted to dual boot my laptop. I already made it as far as creating a bootable USB and booting to BIOS but for some reason the BIOS won't read my USB. I was stuck on that issue for almost half a day.

I figured I need to go to Plan B and just do the VM route.

So, that's what I did. I installed VirtualBox and Ubuntu inside the VM. Everything's running smoothly so far.

What I've Learned so far

One of the first things you'll learn in the Foundations course is how to develop the proper mindset to become a developer.

And I cannot agree more. As with anything in life, I've come to realize that mindset is one of the most important things. It saves you in the most difficult times and helps you see things clearer.

In the dev context, having a proper mindset means having the persistence and discipline to push through hard walls. A dev should have the resiliency to figure out hard things and find out solutions to problems.

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Mindset is a really important factor that will determine if you will become a web developer.

The Foundations course also touched a bit on the history of the Internet. It was a refresher on the things I learned in college like how the internet was first a military infrastructure turned public.  I heard familiar acronyms again, like, DARPA.

What else?

Well, there's a part in there as well about how NOT to be a 'help vampire'. It was a really interesting read and something that I'll always remember and strive not to be.

How's my experience

There were failures and mishaps and bumpy patches already sprinkled in there but overall, I am enjoying everything so far!

There's a bit of the learning curve showing already as I am reading on the command line basics and trying to apply the exercises by myself.

But it was also exciting for me. Using the Terminal is really interesting because I feel like I'm learning as much about my computer and maximizing it's potential, haha!

Supplementals

CS50, but just as additional resource to have a well-rounded knowledge of compsci and programming first principles