10 things to keep in mind while starting your software dev journey
1 - Ask yourself are you sure?
Most of the time we start new things because many people doing it or it seems trendy or cool enough to add it in our portfolio. In all such cases people dropout in between the journey. So, I would recommend to not take a decision in haste or influence. You should take your time and ask yourself; are you sure about it that you wanna do it or not?, are you ready to invest and commit yourself to the decision you are taking?, and if the answer is in yes, then move forward and if you're doubtful don't hesitate to take more time to clear the doubt/s.
2 - Do you have reason/s?
Everything we do in our life have reasons. So, while taking a decision to become a developer or say anything in life, we must have our reasons. Every person have different reasons and that's not a problem, what important is that one must have reason/s to keep moving forward. Like there are people who choose to become web developer from different background to escape their underpaid jobs, some want to learn it because they want good money, some doing it to satisfy their intellectual hunger, some do it because they are passionate about it. It does not really matter from where you are coming, the only thing matter is, do you know why are coming ?
So, find out your reasons.
3 - Research about it
As you have made your mind, now times to do some research. Google about it, read articles, blogs, watch videos. Once you done this primary research yourself, now connect with people working in the same technologies. You can use LinkedIn, Twitter, Reddit and etc. If you still have queries reach out people around you, or on platform like LinkedIn.
4 - Choose practically & wisely !
In this stage I would say, as you have reasons and done your research, so on the basis of those reason & research choose what you want to do. Like do you want to become a full-stack developer, a frontend developer , a backend developer and etc. Let me make it easy for you, just imagine a person need to job asap, so for that study shows becoming a frontend developer is comparatively easier and fast. So, choose wisely and practically.
5 - Learn online!
Today, internet made things easier for us. We have almost everything at our disposal we require to become a software engineer. Once you have chosen your field, like frontend or backend. Try to find out tutorials about it online. Before finalizing, read the reviews and at least checkout a complete class of at least one hour. You can also take suggestion from the people who had already learned and now working.
6 - Believe in your teacher/mentor!
You have made efforts in choosing or say in finalizing your mentor. In this process you have filtered out others to choose one. Now, its time to believe in your choice. Until and unless you have strong enough reason/s to change the tutor/teacher/mentor try to stick with her/him.
7 - Use free resources!
When starting something new to learn, many of us have habits of investing a good amount of money in buying online course, premium tutorials and classes. I would recommend, not to do this. There are lots of open source resources to learn from. YouTube alone has huge number of amazing mentors. Learning from unpaid tutorials is not a bad thing. If you can access the same thing without paying money then why not save that money.
8 - Consistency is the key
Thoughts will come in mind, that maybe you are not smart, intelligent, or talented, and etc. Maybe you are right or maybe you are wrong. Lets just say would you achieve everything if you have above mentioned things in you? If you ask me, I would say, no, I can't. Important thing here is that smartness, intelligence and talent can be acquired and improved over the time, and while I'm saying over time, I mean to say that you have to be consistent in your work, job, learning, efforts , practice and that's will make you smart, intelligent, and talented. So, study regularly, code daily, don't take more than a day break if there is no emergency.
9 - Project base learning is good
Though, everyone has different learning methodologies but while learning software development I would suggest to go with project base learning methodology. Learning languages, methods, frameworks and keeping them in your mind and notebook alone is not good, instead try implementing your learning parallelly in the projects. Using this approach you can prepare projects to showcase as proof of work and can acquire practical implementation of learned technologies.
10 - Have someone, you trust!
This journey would not be easy, you would feel nervous, happy, confident, frustrated and again strong & confident. During emotional breakdown people need someone to listen, someone who respect them, and care for them. This point may sounds weird but from personal experience its really important, we need someone who can believe in us while we start loosing the self-believe. We need someone who can make us realize that we have come so far, and we will reach the destination too. So, having someone to which you can trust and with whom you can share your feelings without fear, is a good and helpful thing.
About Me
I'm a history student turned software engineer. I provide counselling and assistance to the people especially who are seeking to kickstart their career as software engineer. Feel free to connect LinkedIn :)