Around this time each year I have to set my goals at work. Trying to formulate what my goals are is making me think of what my own personal goals as a coder are. In general, I want to use my abilities, skills, and talents to make the world a better place. In addition, I've noticed that I learn by just jumping in and trying things, as well as reading books and basically sucking up all the information I can about a subject. My hope is to use both the experiential and educational approaches to gain more knowledge and accomplish my goals.
Personal Goals
Create some kind of game or fun app
Whether it's a virtual pet app, a puzzle game, or functional app like mobile sticky notes. I've always been interested in creating games or apps. Maybe it was reading 3-2-1 Contact magazine growing up and looking at the BASIC games that they published and you could copy onto your computer. I remember borrowing a BASIC book from the public library and creating a very very simple text game about a koala.
Get involved with the coding community
I haven't really connected with coders outside my office very much. I have gone to the past two WordCamp Boston events, which have been awesome. I did go to one Meetup last year and it was really cool to chat with other programmers and see what they work on/in. I love the Github community and how everyone lets you get all up in their code and see how it was built and add their suggestions. I'd love to go to more events and conferences and maybe even contribute to a Github repo!
Learn foundational programming concepts
As a non-computer science major (I went for photography instead), most of my skills have been learned on the job. It hasn't been easy, but it's been incredibly rewarding. I'd liken the experience to learning a new language by dropping myself off in another country and quickly figuring out how to get the job done in each situation. It's worked out great, but I can sense the gap in my knowledge when it comes to how certain things are structured or how websites work in a broad sense. I've started making an Amazon list of books that deal with different aspects of computer programming, from coding philosophy to practical career advice. So far it's been pretty eye-opening, and I'm hoping it will help me have a more complete picture of how programming works.
Get more freelance and business experience
I did my first freelance project this past year, installing and customizing a Wordpress theme for a non-profit. Getting to see the business side of things was a new challenge for me, and I did a lot of Googling about skills like writing a good SOW, communicating with the client, and the all-important ability of getting paid. It was a great learning experience and the client was very happy with the end product. I also see the need of learning how business and marketing works. While I won't be looking for an MBA, I am looking into books that can teach me some basic business skills.
Professional Goals (as an employee)
Learn a front-end framework
I've learned a lot of front-end stuff this past year, and definitely feel more comfortable with basic responsive design, JS and working with SCSS and Grunt. I'd like to dive deeper into this area and learn more about popular frameworks like Angular.js or Node.js. I honestly don't even really know what they do exactly, so I definitely would like to get more knowledgeable in this area.
Continue contributing to scoping
This past year I've helped out more with estimating dev hours for upcoming projects. I'd like to continue doing that, as well as trying to be watchful for red flags and being more proactive in calling out potential problems in timelines or hours.
Present at Heads Up or other meeting
I presented on a new responsive website build for the first time at one of the monthly all-company meetings and I think it went well-- got good feedback and I enjoyed it. I'd like to try it again.
