Skill Tree Series
Using a Skill Tree to become a Web Developer
How I plan to learn new things each month
In my previous post of the “Skill Tree” series, I discussed the fundamental principles of sowing the seeds for acquiring new skills and the ways to foster their development.
I believe that learning new skills is like growing and nurturing a tree. When you take care of a skill tree, it can blossom and produce branches that lead to new and exciting abilities.
The term skill tree derives from my extensive gaming experience where skill trees are renowned to be present in every modern game.
I have a great interest in how gaming can help people improve themselves. The qualities found in games can be applied to pursue one’s passions and hobbies. If you’re interested, I have previously written about the similarities between gaming and personal development in a post below.
Skill trees are excellent in helping us visualize our characteristics, by highlighting the areas where we are proficient and the areas we are steadily working towards. It underscores our strengths and studies, especially in positive psychology, have shown the benefits of focusing on our strengths rather than our weaknesses.
Sowing my Skill Tree
I find skill trees to be a helpful tool for visualizing my skill progress. As a result, I have started documenting the new skills I learn every month. I hope to demonstrate the long-term benefits of setting and tracking skill trees.
There are an endless number of skills I am keen to learn every month, but having a tight focus is essential to making meaningful progress each month. In the context of my recent career change into tech, the skills I have been learning as of late all relate to programming.
Currently, my skill set in the technology section consists of various active skills such as Python, and Javascript, each at different levels of ability. My objective in this skill section is to attain a moderate level of confidence as a web developer.
Similarly to how game skill trees work, there are prerequisites necessary to achieve a certain skill. In my case, programming languages are minor nodes that lead towards the major web developer node.
Attaining Major Nodes in the Skill Tree
By differentiating between minor and major nodes, I can have a clearer view and better understanding of the progress I am making. Being able to identify what I need to learn to progress to the next level improves my pace and keeps me focused and on track.
As a web developer, possessing programming language skills is crucial. However, other skills are equally important but often less obvious, such as problem-solving, collaboration, and application architecture. These implicit passives play a significant role in becoming a successful web developer.
The skill tree is especially useful because it has a web-like structure of interconnected nodes, both minor and major. This makes it easy to see how indirect and supporting skills are related, which helps people like me to better understand them.
For the past month, I have been fully focused on learning JavaScript, particularly NodeJS and React. Along with HTML and CSS styling. I have primarily been using Udemy. Courses from Dr Angela Yu have been exceptional in aiding my learning experience.
My Goal this Month
My goal for the end of this month is to achieve a fairly confident understanding of React, in preparation to refactor my website. I plan to be in a good position to refactor my website using the NextJS framework and deployed using a docker container on Azure.
Completing this capstone task will be a major accomplishment for me and will significantly enhance my skills as a web developer. I see this task as a challenging level in a computer game, where I will use my experience to overcome obstacles and reach new milestone. This will allow me to acquire new skills and tackle even greater challenges in the future.
I plan to update my skill tree progress monthly. Currently, I am focusing on developing my technology skills, as outlined in this post. However, I am eager to explore new areas and expand my skill set beyond my comfort zone.
Recently, I have been enjoying hiking and learning salsa, and I am excited to see how I can incorporate these activities into my skill tree. Find out how I get along in next month’s update.
