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General Discussion

Shilpa K
Shilpa K
12,722 Points
Posted by Shilpa K
Shilpa K
12,722 Points

Becoming a Front-End Web Developer

I'm curious to learn about other students' experience with Treehouse courses and how it led to a job in web development.

I'm currently in the process of building my own portfolio, and am wondering if there are others like me who used Treehouse primarily for their learning - what did you make./build to become a front end developer? What types of companies did you look out for to start off your career (small start ups, internships, etc.)?

Any advice on projects (particularly to demonstrate JS skills) that you showed to potential employers?

anitamarks
anitamarks
581 Points

Companies expect professional competence, and don't really have the bandwidth to deal with someone who can't do that straight out of the gate. My own humble strategy is to offer to build sites for people or non-profit organizations who can't afford to pay. They have much lower expectations, and your learning curve won't impact anyone's ability to pay their bills.

Be up-front and tell them you are a beginner striving to develop your skills and build a portfolio. Pick one basic aspect of the organization--a hiking club's calendar of events, your church's upcoming new-member potluck, etc.--then build a little website. You'd be amazed how encouraging it is to get praise from people for things YOU consider to be pretty basic. And then add on pages--maybe the hiking club has a recommended gear list, or the church could use a wishlist of donations for their youth group.

Once you think about it, there are TONS of worthy candidates who might be willing to give a beginner some experience. Friends that would love to have an electronic CV. Volunteer organizations where you or your friends are members that could use a club site. A book club or crafting meetup that would like a little site with an About page, meetup schedule and location map of their very own. (If you've ever tried to search meetup.com to figure out where YOUR friend's specific sock knitting group meets, you'll get why they might want to pop for a URL.)

Or just build a site about one of your own interests--bird-watching, preserving/collecting vinyl records, your family's genealogy, etc. Doing an assortment of projects gives you a variety of problems to solve--a real skill-builder.

Best of luck to you in your future endeavors!

1 Answer

Gerard Weppler
Gerard Weppler
4,357 Points
Gerard Weppler
Gerard Weppler
4,357 Points

Hi Shilpa,

I came across your question and wanted to subscribe to this thread for the same reasons you asked. I am currently taking the same path you are and am learning using treehouse to ultimately change my profession and be a developer.

I am a little bit away from the progress you have made but am determined to stay on course and reach my goal of being a web developer by April.

I feel 6 months is a fair amount of time to give myself, to learn and build a portfolio before I look to apply for a jr front-end web developer.

Do you have any work that you can showcase? If yes, please post it so I can get an idea of some of the projects you are working on currently.

I do not have much to showcase as I am still in the early stages of working and learning but what I plan to do is have my main site I built and use that as where all my projects will be.

You can view it at gerard.weppler.me

Please take into consideration that I only started in Sept 22, and have not completed my site either. I want to get passed this track of CSS which I will be finished with tomorrow.

But I have a lot of plans for my site that I will be implementing very soon.

All the best!