My 2020 In Summary and Going Forward

My 2020 In Summary and Going Forward

Hello everyone! Today's article will be somewhat of a personal journal entry to myself (so it will be not be on Hashnode or announced on Twitter). If you actually found this article, wow thank you!

As 2020 comes to an end, I would like to take the time to reflect on the ups, downs and progress I have made as a developer/writer. Then, I'd like to state my future goals and plans moving forward into 2021.

A Snapshot of My 2020

January-March

It was a period when I felt lost and stagnant as a developer. But I did not regard "lost" as a negative word. In fact, being lost encouraged me to explore into the area of freelancing and get involved in a few hackathons. As an introvert, this was the period when I slowly opened up my shell to meet other devs in my local community.

I talked and met amazing devs, whom I share precious memories with as we strive to build a project within 48 hours for the hackathon.

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April-May

These months were bittersweet. The country was under lockdown and everyone was expected to stay at home. The pandemic got worse globally and every aspect of my life was affected, including my career as a developer and my health. I sprained an ankle, had hip grafting surgery for medical reasons and was bedridden for about 3 weeks.

The reason I remembered this period as bittersweet was because all the negative things that were happening resulted in me having a good mental rest (I played Animal Crossing on my Nintendo Switch everyday haha). So despite the physical pain in my ankle/hip during April-May, I felt it was therapeutic and healing period for myself.

Another 'sweet' aspect about this month was that I discovered Hashnode and began to blog since I was so free while recovering from my injuries. And that really changed my life. I haven't stopped writing on this blog since then.

June-October

There is a saying that life is full of surprises and this period fit those words. The first surprise was my blog began to gain a substantial amount of readers. Not only do I realize that my writing has positively impacted others, it is also a great platform to meet new people. I started a Twitter account to engage more with my audience and community. I was startled by how much we can learn from each other and how amazing the tech community is on Twitter.

I experienced a lot of firsts in these months. Such as my first domain, tech talk, my first fan to say she's a fan and many more precious milestones. Some highlights from Twitter below:

November-December

As I continued developing myself as a freelancer and writer, I found myself winning a hackathon that a friend and I randomly signed up for. It felt super exciting and wonderful!

I also continued meeting more amazing people on the worldwide Twitter community.

Last but not least, I figured that it's time for me to venture out of freelancing and start job hunting. While applying to jobs, I found that my blog had helped me a lot in finding my dream job. I'll publish an article on how blogging has changed my life soon.

Edit: Here's the article!

Moving Forward

In summary, 2020 was an eventful year. I have definitely learned a lot as a developer and grown a lot as a writer. Moving forward, here are some of my goals related to tech/blogging:

  • Learn more about the best industry practices in web development (i.e. security, infrastructure, testing, DevOps, etc.) from my job
  • Learn about the Fintech industry from my job
  • Continue publishing articles consistently on this blog
  • Continue supporting other blogs and learning from other devs on Hashnode
  • Continue meeting new people and being involved in the tech community via Twitter
  • Build some awesome side projects while learning new tech (i.e. language, framework, libraries, etc.)
  • Attend some exciting tech conferences/hackathons in my local community
  • Strive for work-life balance and stay healthy (physically and emotionally)
  • Spend more time catching up with family and friends

And that's the end of this personal reflection article. If anyone has actually read this till the end, thank you so much. Thank you everyone for the support and thank you Hashnode for this amazing platform that changed my life. I hope 2020 has been a fruitful year to you as well and I wish you all the very best for 2021! Have a happy new year and cheers!

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Some amazing people I've met (sorry if I missed anyone):

  • Sandeep Panda
  • Syed Fazle Rahman
  • Edidiong Asikpo
  • Bolaji Ayodeji
  • Efereyan Karen
  • Ikegah Ruth
  • Heritage Alabi
  • Anita Ihuman
  • Motunrayo Koyejo
  • Catalin Pit
  • Tapas Adhikary
  • Fatima Senouci
  • Omotola Shogunle
  • Oluwaseun Dabiri
  • Skay aka Karthik Shivkumar
  • Favourite Jome
  • Ayushi Rawat
  • Obi Zim
  • Ido Shamun
  • Dinys Monvoisin
  • Konstantinos Rantos
  • Ricardo Mendoza
  • Brenda Michelle
  • Isaac Zara
  • Sunrit Jana
  • Jatin Rao
  • Rutik Wankhade

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