How to Grow as a 13 year old Web Developer in Training

Hi internet and FCC! First, a little background. I am a 13-year-old web developer in training. I have been hired twice for my CSS and backend skills. I learned on Udemy, FCC, CodeSchool (which merged with PluralSight), and also have completed HTML and CSS fundamentals on the Cambridge Certificate Authority website. I have been homeschooled most of my life, but now I go to school, which is a big change and has thrown me out of the loop web development wise.

Anyway, I have been struggling with web development as a whole since starting school, and I have trouble focusing. I have tried every course I have, and either I have already learned the topic, it doesn’t work :frowning: or I just get bored of it. What should I do?

Your friend, Mr_Nobody1166

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I’d say, don’t force yourself and enjoy the student experience while you can. Being a social, well-adjusted individual is just as important as being technically good individual, and school is an important training ground in forming these social relationships and honing these personal skills.

Which is not to say give up on web development, but don’t put too much pressure on yourself. Let your interest drive your learning rather than learning as a mean to a career goal.

Build projects related to your interest, interest beyond web development. For example, people build recipe reader and shopping list apps because they enjoy cooking, other enjoy movies so they build recommendation engines for movie. Passion a lot of time can sustain and drive you through struggles.

Your best method is simply learn by doing and repetition. If you run into problems, tutorials and stack overflow is your best friend. Don’t be afraid to ask for help, it’s not a sin to struggles sometimes.

When you think you learned something, try teaching it to someone else. If they cannot learn it effectively, then maybe there is gaps in your own understanding that inhibits knowledge transfer.

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Thanks for the input! I will try to relax a little, and I would teach it to someone, but nobody else around me wants to learn.

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Write a tutorial, put it on your blog. Record yourself coding and explaining and watch it on playback. Start a club, start a meet up. The world is your oyster, just need to take a little initiative.

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Thank you for the advice. I have a YouTube channel, so maybe I can do that there.

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@LloygGarmadon, make school your priority, even if the topics don’t interest you. Have fun with your friends. Social interaction skills are important when working with others on a project. Most developers I know don’t spend their whole day coding. There are all kinds of meetings and discussions. Have web development as a hobby for now. You’ll have plenty of time to work after your graduate school.

To further grow as a web developer find something that you haven’t done before and create a project (you can put it in your portfolio later). Some examples are: create a react app, build a data visualization dashboard, make an animated piece of art, contribute to open source projects. Find something that’s fun and challenging and learn by doing it.

By the way, I think you’re awesome.

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Thank you for your time and your answer; and yes, school is priority, but problem - no friends. So - that throws a kink in my plans. Web development is still a hobby,and I’m working on a project right now. Again, thank you. :slight_smile:

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It can be tough making friends in school. Try talking to the kids around you and find someone with common interests. A great way to make friends is to talk about something that interests them, even if it doesn’t interest you.

Thanks for the tip, but most people don’t have my interests: web development, or the fact that I play a “uncool” game which you may have heard of called Minecraft, and as well as that I don’t play Fortnite, basically shoves me out of the social throng - . Anyway, thanks for the tips, but making friends at my school is going to be harder than it is for normal kids who play Fortnite.

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If you can’t find anyone who shares your interests, then talk to people about what they like. Most people appreciate someone who listens to them talk about what they enjoy. Learn why they like it. You could find that you like it too. You can make a lot friends by being someone who listens and cares about people’s lives.

On the otherhand, chances are there is someone who shares your interests and you just don’t realize it yet. :grinning:

I will try that, but I don’t know a lot about what they enjoy. There is the possibility that someone shares my interest, but trust me; my school is a small one (two hundred people), it is kindergarten through twelfth grade, and I know just about everyone there; I have one friend, two mutual friends, and a few adults that share my interests. Thanks for your advice, I appreciate the time you have spent helping me out with my problems, and thank you for your presence at FCC.

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I’m glad to hear you do have a friend. I never had many friends growing up, as I was introverted. Sometimes one friend is all you need.

At your age I was just into games and action figures, so I’m really impressed that you are into Web development.

Thanks. Actually, I realized I have two friends - one is a completely different continent, with 6 hour time difference - which makes it hard to communicate.

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