“Sometimes it pays to stay in bed on Monday, rather than spending the rest of the week debugging Monday’s code.“
Dan Salomon
Being a Web Developer is something that I didn’t see for myself prior to returning to higher education, and it certainly wasn’t my first pick when enrolling at WTCC. I originally enrolled in the Data Science program, thinking that I was going to get passionate about…data science? Well, that didn’t last very long. I ended up taking a class in the beginning of the program I am enrolled in that finished up with me learning how to create a fully-functional web application using XAMPP, and I made every part of it – I created the page and the form for input using HTML, styled it with CSS, and then added some PHP and MySQL to make something that actually worked. Putting these pieces together was awesome, and I’ve been hooked since!
The first thing I love about being a web developer is the levels of creativity it can bring out of me. I’ve never been much of an artist, but learning CSS and becoming capable in web design (from a coding perspective) has left me feeling kind of empowered to create things that actually look nice; those things being websites. The second thing that I love about being a web developer is the coding and programming part of it. Programming was always daunting and challenging for me, from the outside looking in. However, learning how to code and create websites using HTML/CSS/JS and some basic server-side languages like PHP have shown me a different side to programming that has become a skill I am excited to master. The third thing that I love about being a web developer are the opportunities I get to help other people achieve their goals through the creation of websites, single-page web applications, SEO, and other web development topics. I’ve only dabbled with helping some people outside of school, but what I’ve done has been rewarding and awesome and has left me feeling encouraged to keep pushing on as an aspiring web developer.
Things I’ve learned thus far:
- HTML
- CSS
- JavaScript
- PHP
- MySQLd
- MongoDB
- NodeJS
- ExpressJS
- VueJS
- Angular.JS
- Sass
- Bootstrap
A sidenote on Themes…
Another thing I love about being a web developer is WordPress, and something that I talk about in one of my other blog posts are WordPress Themes. I think that WordPress Themes help to bridge the gap between the hand-coding developer and the everyday user. Despite having some kind of background in web development, I can see how navigating WordPress and applying a theme is something that a non-developer could accomplish with relative ease. To the every non-developer reading my post, here is the official WordPress documentation on working with themes.
Likewise, the button below will take you to the official WordPress Themes website.
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Ryan Laches is an aspiring web developer studying Web Development and Wake Technical Community College. Having spent most of his young adult life in the federal penal system, he hopes to inspire others in similar circumstances to turn to education as a way to break the cycle.
Hi Ryan, I enjoyed reading your thoughts on web development. Great article.