So before I dive into the technical aspects that I have struggled with during this project, there a few things that have made this project process interesting to say the least. I have been on my paternity leave for the past 3 months, which has made this coding journey a little easier for me because I have been able to focus more on coding daily without being exhausted from work. That changed last week when my paternity leave ended and I returned to work. I work as an inpatient Physical Therapist Assistant at a hospital in NJ and this first week back has been exhausting both physically and mentally, especially with this global pandemic. My daily coding has been squeezed into a shorter amount of time and I found myself struggling to write simple lines of code because of how tired I am from work. After many cups of coffee, energy drinks and late nights/early mornings, I can say I have gotten through creating another project. Now it may not be as pretty as I would have liked, but I can fix that up in the near future. Ok, now that I got that off my chest, lets talk code.
I remember on the first day of orientation writing down all the milestones we would hit along the way to our journey as Software Engineering students. After the getting through the “First Mile”, I knew that the next milestone coming up was the CLI data gem portfolio project. Working through those labs and lessons after the first mile and alongside being on paternity leave due to this global pandemic, I guess the days were just passing me by. Up until the first day of project week I didn’t realize that the time had come. I felt both nervous and excited about working on my first project, which pretty much sums up how I have been feeling throughout the program so far.
Back in high school, when asked what do you want to major in college? I always answered with software engineering. However that plan was pushed aside because I felt I did not know much about it and it would be too difficult of a career choice to pursue. I felt that I would not be able to succeed because I felt others knew more about computers than me.