This course has taught me many important things in the ways of coding. The most important thing being that there is no one way to accomplish a coding task. Many of us were taught in our Web Development class one way to create a React App. This capstone project taught me that I barely scratched the surface on the different ways of creating and navigating a web application.
In my group, we have a member who has been in the front-end development industry for a few years, and it was his knowledge that shed light on different ways to tackle the project. This was big because it allowed me to learn and experience a new set of otherwise untouched skills when it comes to React Apps. I realized I was too oriented in the idea that ‘What I learned in this one specific class is the way to do anything and everything’, and that idea needed to change. If I only ever built Web Applications one way, I would be missing out on learning new features that would make my web app run more smoothly, and I would also be missing out on marketing myself as a diverse developer. Instead of bringing one skill set to an interview, I now can bring multiple skill sets.
Obviously, this showed me how much more work I need to put in, if I want to land a job as a front-end, back-end or full stack developer. While it may seem silly that my biggest success isn’t me writing about using JWT or bcrypt or context pages for the first time in my registration/login pages I developed, I feel that unblocking this wall that I didn’t even know I put up is a huge milestone in my journey as a professional developer. I am grateful for this group because I now feel like I am better equipped to learn what I need to learn in order to showcase a wide range of skills in the market.
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