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General Discussion

jamesjones21
jamesjones21
9,260 Points

Working as a junior web developer

So working as a junior php web developer and been in the role for 2 months almost, one thing I've not stopped doing is learning, going home and coding. But learning laravel at the moment.

Which I'm trying to grasp as much as possible, but should I feel discouraged if I don't know all ?

Mike Hatch
Mike Hatch
14,940 Points

Discouraged even after you scored a full time job as a junior php developer? There are many web devs who've been studying for two years and still can't get a job. Heck, I even read a tweet regarding a talented 20+ year veteran developer who can't find new employment because he doesn't have projects posted to github!

That being said, I'm curious as to how you ended up choosing php? It's an interesting choice for a newer developer. I know that it's greatly improved recently and is still strong, but most new developers seem more interested in JS/Python.

2 Answers

Caleb Kleveter
MOD
Caleb Kleveter
Treehouse Moderator 37,862 Points

It's great that you are continuing to learn and take courses along with holding a dev job. The real life experience is irreplaceable. Keep going!

If you feel like you aren't learning anything at the moment, or that information just isn't sticking, don't give up. Here are a few things that come to mind that might help, though some of these points might not pertain to you:

  • Shorten the amount of time you set aside to learning new stuff at home. After a day at work, your brain can be a bit worn out from all the mental effort you put into your job earlier in the day. You don't want to completely burn yourself out.
  • Get up a bit earlier and do your learning in the morning. When you're fresh from your nights sleep (or first cup of coffee ?), you will have more mental power to put into learning then at the end of the day..
  • At least for myself, my brain seems to work in sprints. I'll go for some time where nothing makes sense at all, then all of a sudden everything starts clicking. This may or may not be you.
  • Get enough sleep. You need it.

Hope this helps. Keep going and great job on your progress so far!

jamesjones21
jamesjones21
9,260 Points

thanks for the advice, think with me I did the 100daysofcode challenge and committed to at least an hour a day of learning, but there is only so much I can do to be honest, but deadlines in work which doesn't give me enough time to go an research something in order to work with it, if you get my drift? Plus learning a framework lol

jamesjones21
jamesjones21
9,260 Points

It's basically based on the area I'm living in. It's either c# or PHP so I've picked php as it's more towards web development. It's the fact I'm working with Laravel and getting aquiented with that framework an not writing my own code, but I have been writing is on the front end, an they are similar languages with declaring functions nx if statements