Hey, I am Rohan, and I am a Flutter developer, this is my first blog ever, so sorry for all the mistakes and errors, I look forward to improving as time goes on, so keeping that aside, let's talk about my journey as a developer throughout 2022 without further ado so that beginners can learn a thing or two from this blog.
Last year I learned a lot, explored a lot, got to know myself a lot, tried a lot of things and failed multiple times in different things, felt like giving up, but still, I kept on moving forward. So let me explain all of it one by one so that if you are a beginner and you are reading this, you won't have to go through the same thing or figure out what to do and what not to do by making the same things that I did.
My Learnings :
Project-Based Learning
- One of the most important things that I learned in the year 2022 is the importance of project-based learning. I also started learning Flutter using a course but soon I realized that is not the optimal way of learning any tech stack. Project-based learning, meaning, learning the basics of any tech stack that you want to learn, from any resources(Youtube, Docs, Blogs etc) and then start creating basic projects and searching for stuff on google, learning from it, applying it on your project and move forward learning in this manner. This way we learn things faster and build the confidence of creating things ourselves, figure out ways of debugging our own code and also get the experience of how actual development works in the real world. Many people tend to think that learning completely before starting any project or, first create basic projects first and then going for more advanced ones, is the best way to move forward, but what I found out is, starting a good project, setting deadlines to implement features, tracking progress, googling things and learning things simultaneously, and learning to code along the way is the most optimal way to progress.
How to choose from so many different tech stacks
- Even though I started learning and exploring different tech stacks in 2021, still in this year I also struggled to understand which tech stacks I should explore more, and which tech stack makes me feel more passionate about, but in the end, I figured I couldn't land on the suitable answer for myself. Then after some brainstorming and self-questioning, I figured that, when you are confused about which tech stack to learn, or with which one you should continue your journey, the first thing to keep in mind is that whatever you learn is not going to be permanent, you will learn various tech stacks along the journey according to different requirements in different situations. So for now, just select two or three fields that come to your mind that intrigue you then start learning any one of those, then once you create some projects and feel comfortable in it, then, on the side start learning little by little about the second tech stack you had in mind while continuing to practice the previous one by creating projects & contributing to open source etc. Then, if you feel like the new thing you started learning is more appealing to you then you can shift your focus to it anytime you want else just continue the previous one. Follow this for any tech stack that you want to explore. In this way, we can minimise the wastage of time in order to find the so-called right thing for ourselves, and also progress in our journey of software development.
Everyone's journey is unique
- Nowadays, we all consume content from different sources, e.g: Youtube, LinkedIn, Twitter etc, through which we learn how to progress, how to learn things, and how to implement things, which is the right way to excel in our careers, which is great, and empowering students to learn and grow more, and opening the door of great opportunities for them, but what I have experienced is that these roadmaps and some success stories of others put a great amount of FOMO(Fear of missing out) in our heads and makes us think that this given way is the only way that we can achieve anything or, the only way to succeed is the way that guy did it. This is not true. Everyone's success story is different, they followed different paths, but still, somehow they found success in their own ways. So it's okay if you feel uncertain about your journey, but if we work hard and try hard in different ways then maybe in some way or the other we will find the success that we were looking for, and we will be able to write our own stories which are different from everybody else's. Life is full of uncertainties, so rather than running from them, it is better to embrace them.
There you go, a short and simple blog where I shared three of my most important learnings of the year 2022. If you read this so far, thank you for showing your interest, I hope this helps you in some way or the other. As I mentioned I like exploring so here I am exploring a new thing again, blogging. Apologies for the mistakes again, hoping to improve with time and definitely looking forward to having fun in my blogging journey. Thank You!