Reflection

Coding is everywhere in Silicon Valley, and many of the highest paying jobs in this area revolve around it. I decided to learn how to code a basic website using HTML and CSS for my 20 Time project. At the very least, I wanted to understand how it works and open myself up to the opportunities it presents.

Initially, I wanted to take an online introductory course on codecademy.com in HTML and CSS. The course I picked took an estimated 14 hours to complete. After that, I would judge if I needed additional practice. Eventually, I would start to code the website. I did not know the medium I would use to code the website. To make it more science-related, I would code about our previous unit: domains, kingdoms, phylums, and classes.

I really enjoyed my project because coding was a lot of fun for me. Being able to learn something then immediately apply it encouraged me to learn more. As a visual learner, the ability to directly see how changing code affects the overall product helped me learn it. In addition, I enjoyed the creative freedom I had on the formatting and styling portion.

In terms of obstacles, the ones I experienced were frequent but small-scale. When I did not know something, a menu would pop up after a few tries that offered the correct code. One difficulty I faced was that in April, I broke my dominant arm. At first, I could not even lift up my arm so I had to type with one hand. Eventually, I could lift my arm up, but still, it hurts after a while and I type very slowly. Breaking my arm greatly impacted my project because I lost a lot of my efficiency and became very slow at typing.

Besides learning to code, I developed many skills. I had to learn how to manage my project time to make sure I had time to code the website.  I had to make sure I stayed focus throughout my project. For the week after I broke my arm, I had to stay motivated that I would be able to make substantial progress. That week was very hard because I was still in pain and I could only type right my right hand. Because of this, I coded a codebit instead. It has the same coding, but I did not have to go through the technical work of having a website. 

If I redid my project, I would have gone straight into coding the website after completing my first course. Instead, I had done about 3 hours on specifically coding a website. The second course was not the most effective use of my time because sometimes, I was going over things I already knew and other times, I was not reviewing what I needed to.

This project reinforced that I am a visual learner. I learned that coding may be something I want to continue in my career. I plan to take AP CSS next year. I will not continue coding this website specifically, but coding will definitely be something I continue in my future. As I stated before, I am taking it as a class next year.