Makers Academy Day 29

Javascript 30 Drum Kit task

This week we’ve started learning Javascript. Having become familiar with Ruby it felt strange to go back to being a total beginner, and struggle with the basics again. At least that’s what I thought on Monday morning. What I realise now is that all the skills I’ve picked up at Makers Academy gives me a brilliant tool belt to fast track my learning. I might be learning a new language, but I’m coming at it from a totally different perspective than I was two months ago.

Initially the prospect of ‘starting again’ with a language felt intimidating, and later frustrating. However, like my whole time at Makers, something that I’ve been working hard on is embracing challenges rather than being afraid of them. Instead of worrying about the fact that I don’t know many things, I’m working on relishing the fact that I have an opportunity to be learning something new.

Aaron — https://uk.pinterest.com/explore/aaron-swartz/

Recently I’ve been re-reading Aaron Swartz’ blog, which I find endlessly inspiring. I especially like this piece on how to be more productive. There’s plenty of practical advice on breaking problems down, and there’s also some more holistic points in there. Like this paragraph:

Life is short (or so I’m told) so why waste it doing something dumb? It’s easy to start working on something because it’s convenient, but you should always be questioning yourself about it. Is there something more important you can work on? Why don’t you do that instead? — Aaron Swarzt, HOWTO: Be more productive

At Makers I am being challenged and learning everyday, I’m not doing the easy or the convenient. Though being challenged can sometimes feel frustrating, overall it’s exhilarating. Today I wanted to remind myself of the excitement of learning new things. In this spirit I started Javascript 30, a 30 day vanilla Javascript coding challenge. I weighed up working further on Makers course material, before realising that actually I wanted to be curious and explore a totally different style of learning.

I haven’t been disappointed. When I cranked open my laptop to start coding at 7.30am I was greeted with a heavy metal soundtrack and Wes Bos giving me some audio high fives, before walking me through a high energy building a drum kit in Javascript exercise. After 20 minutes, the most valuable thing I took away was a renewed sense of enjoying the journey, and not being heavy hearted about learning fundamentals. Instead Aaron and Wes reminded me how cool it is to do new things for the first time. Mixing up my learning has been a refreshing move, and helped me start the week with a positive mindset; to embrace the challenge rather than fear it.

Thanks to my mentor Eugenia Guerrero for suggesting I try Javascript 30.