What should the next steps be?

Hello everyone.

I finished the Front End Libraries Certification. I feel like I know the basics and overall am at the intermediate level of knowing front end. Should I continue to pursue learning front end on different courses and sites. There are not many courses that start at intermediate or advanced, most start from the beginning. Or should I continue on with the FCC curriculum.

My goal is to start front end freelancing as soon as possible. I dont know how important the rest of FCC curriculum is for that.

Thanks so much!

Andrej

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I suggest that you create some more projects. Maybe try cloning a site design, without looking at the site code. Whenever you get confused, Google the answer. You will only do better when you challenge yourself!

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At what point do you know your ready for freelancing??

You are ready when you feel comfortable building sites yourself. Could you send me some of your sites you’ve built (if you are okay with).

That way I can give feedback on them. I will judge them from a client POV.

When I once built a client website, I ended up using wordpress because I wasn’t ready to build sites via HTML and CSS. So I learned from my mistakes, by looking at your sites I can see.

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I would certainly recommend continuing the freeCodeCamp curriculum. The different sections aren’t really meant to be taken independently and don’t correspond to different fields.

Ya I know the basics. These are Free Code Camp projects.

Code: https://codepen.io/aoljaca/pen/Vwergxg
Code: https://codepen.io/aoljaca/pen/PoZJoNK
Code: https://codepen.io/aoljaca/pen/YzwxGjB
Heres the rest: https://codepen.io/dashboard/

What is wrong with using wordpress?

So the freeCodeCamp curriculum after the Front End certification also ties into front end? Also why learn web development when there is wordpress?

Thanks

Wordpress will only let you create slightly differently variants of stuff that already exists. Web development is about making new things.

So the reason that you want to learn more than just HTML and CSS is because things like Wordpress and Squarespace exist. If someone just wants to make a templated website, they can do that really easily without needing to know how to to code. That’s not what most web developers are working on. We’re making online Saas platforms, complex web applications, single apps that work on a computer or as a phone app, software that runs in electron as an installed application. freeCodeCamp can’t be built in WordPress, but it’s built on web development. VS Code, Slack, and Discord (both online and the one installed on your computer) are built on web technology.

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I also heard that its important to learn about computer science. Is this true??

It depends on what you mean by “important” and “computer science”. To my mind it’s a bit like “if you want to be a carpenter, it’s important to learn geometry”. Everything that you’re going to do will be an application of computer science. At some point you’re going to need to get into the more abstract concepts in order to do really well. What subjects you should study and when is a debate I’ll leave to people with more expertise on education than I have.

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Ok, so you do suggest completing all of free code camp curriculum before freelancing??

Not necessarily. Lots of people end up wandering away from the freeCodeCamp curriculum, often because they get really into something that they discover along the way and use other resources and start building their own projects.

If your goal is to freelance, I suggest that you start looking at freelancing sites (that don’t require you to pay to join). Look at the type of jobs being offered, what the pay/bids look like, the final results (if possible) and ask yourself “could I do that well enough to create a good reputation and quickly enough to come out ahead?” When you think that you have the ability to do compete for the jobs that you are aiming for, go for it. In the mean time, keep going deeper on your knowledge and getting a Iot of practice on difficult projects.

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What should the next step be

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You just have to jump in and do it at some point. I never felt I was ready for years after I started freelancing.

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Personally I’ve found most of freecodecamp’s material to be a great introduction to programming and entry level development. I say this because I also thought I was at an intermediate level after doing the challenges.

I wasn’t though, and had to supplement my learning elsewhere. And if you want to freelance, there won’t be many around to help you past obstacles.

If you truly feel you’re at an intermediate level, then try tackling the 7 guis challenges.

https://eugenkiss.github.io/7guis/tasks

These are mostly intermediate, small, real world gui tasks. If you can complete all or most, then I’d say you’re on track to not only freelancing, but possibly getting hired.

Don’t stress if you can’t get through all of them. I couldn’t. And now I’m building an entire application for Intermine during an Outreachy internship.

I personally don’t think freecodecamp does or can get you to intermediate level. In my opinion, that comes from building more real world apps. So go out and start building! :smiley:

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