Transitioning to me wasn't something new, but transitioning to tech for me was a big deal, from being a Nurse in 2019, to being a crypto enthusiast and now to being a tech bro, it was a very interesting and challenging journey for me, in this article, I will share with you how I journeyed to becoming a Front-End Software Developer in less than 5months.

WHO IS A FRONT-END SOFTWARE DEVELOPER

Have you visited a website recently?, appreciated the designs?, you clicked on a button and it worked?, you were able to interact with the website and you enjoyed the experience? That's part of the doings of a front-end software developer.

A front-end software developer is associated with every client side related operations, by client-side, i mean everything you can see on your screen when you open a website or app.

GETTING STARTED

Getting started in tech can be very challenging if you don't have the adequate knowledge or roadmap. it's just like someone that started learning react.js without first learning javascript, the person will definitely get confused on the way, because to understand React.js, you need to know Javascript. that's is why I am writing this article to guide aspiring front-end developers so they do not get lost in the way.

SKILLS NEEDED TO BECOME A FRONT-END DEVELOPER

Some of the tech stacks/skills you need to become a front-end developer, will be listed below together with how you should go about learning them.

To stand out in tech, you need these basic programming language skills

• HTML (Hyper Text MarkUp Language)
• CSS (Cascading Sty le Sheet)
• JAVASCRIPT

Personally I started first with Javascript, I finished the basic course on Javascript on Udemy, I can remember in my Javascript course, I took a crash course on HTML & CSS, and it felt good because after weeks of learning and writing codes, my codes can eventually reflect on the screen and not just on chrome developer tools.

So I paused learning Javascript as soon as I was done with the basics, then I had problem purchasing another course on Udemy, but a friend gave me login details to Linkedin Learning, there I learnt a lot about HTML & CSS,

At that point when I finished learning HTML & CSS, mind you I finished learning both HTML & CSS in less than one month, then I started practicing, building projects, watched lots of Youtube project building videos and tutorials, and I won't lie, it really helped me a lot,

I learnt a lot of approaches, solutions, patterns about programming on YouTube, after I was done with my HTML and CSS, I resumed back to my JavaScript course, there I continued from where I stopped, it was a 69hours course, but it took me about 2-3months to finish it, the JavaScript course was a technical that I had to take things slow so I can grasp the concept, as soon as I finished the JavaScript course, that's after 3months, then I started learning frameworks.

A programming framework is a tool that provides ready-made components or solutions that are customized in order to speed up development. In lame man terms, a framework contains reusable codes written by someone else to speed up development.

Choosing which framework to learn for me was another struggle, Deciding which CSS framework to learn between Bootstrap, Tailwind and SASS was another struggle, so I checked on Udemy the number of students who enrolled for the three frameworks, and tailwind had the smallest number of students, and because it is a relatively new framework, so I decided to learn it, learning it was so fun and sweet, so I felt if CSS framework was that easy, then learning Javascript framework should be an easy pass for me, but alas, I got SHOCKED!!.

So yet again I was caught in between choosing between REACT, VUE and ANGULAR, this time around I consulted some of my friends who are in tech already, I contacted three, and they all chose react, guess because it is the most popular framework out there, so I decided to kickstart my react journey.

I had to take three different courses from three different tutors before I could grasp the concept, at first I felt like giving up, then I reminded myself 'I didn't make it this far by giving up', and also I always say this into existence "life can never defeat me",

The first course I took, the tutors was just building projects, importing and exporting, using useState hooks, talking about components, talking about stuffs I have absolutely no idea about, I spent three hours on this before I quitted and searched for another tutor on Udemy, I found another one on Udemy, though the course was last updated in 2018, I still took the course, i learnt a lot about react fundamentals from the course and it really helped me when I switched to the third course, and the reason I switched was because of the number of dependencies I needed to install to start writing react codes, webpack, react, react-dom, babel, babel-cors, and so on.... the configuration too was stressful so then I decided to try an updated react course, which bring me to the third course I enrolled for,

Before I talk about the third course, I want to say this, the reason I was jumping from one course was because of laziness, I was looking for a react course with lesser duration, the first one I took was 14hours, the second was 39hours and the third one was 49hours, which I was trying to avoid initially but I had to settle for it at last because i really wanted to grasp the concept.

Then I took the third course, there I realized I only needed to run couple of commands to get my react app project started, I never regretted jumping from one course to another because the knowledge I gained from the two previous courses really helped me in grasping the concept of react better and quickly, took me one month to complete the react course,

After I was done with react, I learnt typescript, took me two weeks, which was the final stack/skill I needed for front-end development.

All of these stacks and skill can be completed in less than 5months if you dedicate at least 3-5hours to learning everyday.

Now, let me summarize the roadmap with duration for you.

• HTML -> 1-2weeks
• CSS -> 1-2weeks
• JAVASCRIPT -> 2-3months
• VERSION CONTROL (GIT) -> 1 week
• CSS Frameworks: TAILWINDCSS/BOOTSTRAP/SASS -> 1 week
• JAVASCRIPT Frameworks: REACT.JS/VUE.JS/ANGULAR.JS -> 1 month
• TYPESCRIPT -> 2 weeks

BEGINNER FRIENDLY PLATFORMS TO GET STARTED

Personally, Udemy, LinkedIn Learning, Youtube, and Google really helped me get on track

MY FINAL NOTE TO YOU

In one of my articles on Kudisprout, I said, before you get started with tech, find a motivation that can keep you going even when things get rough, motivation could be money, desire to change the world, desire to innovate, just find your motivation, a big picture that shows you how much you can achieve by learning tech!.

Also you have to start building projects, no matter how small it is, build, build, that is one of the fastest means to learn, most importantly, your tutor can't teach you everything you need to get started with tech, most of what you need will be gotten through your personal research, so know how to use Youtube and google very well to search for solution to your problem.

Finally, never stop learning, when you are done with learning front-end software development, don't stop there, learn something new, like back-end software development, just make sure you do not stop learning because the world is moving rapidly and you need to be able to catch up with trend, and you can only do that by constant improvement.

I know this was a very lengthy read, but I know it is worth every minute of your time, and I hope you learnt one thing or the other or a lot from the article.

Let me know what you think about my journey in the comment section!

#Candie