Epic Web Conf

Below is my lightning talk for the Epic Web Conf for 2024. I shared a little bit about my development learning journey, and how you can maximize your learning investment whether you’re new to tech or learning a new skill.

Video - Getting the Most Out of Your Learning Investment

Call Kent Podcast - Lifelong Learning in Web Development with Mandy Hartman

Though I’m fairly new to development, I have used these tools for learning for many years. I worked in museums and archives for about a decade and was an academic. I’ve racked up two grad degrees and even started a PhD last year in digital history. But, after building an archive software with my software developer partner I decided to learn more and build some skills in development. My transition into tech involved a bootcamp, many workshops, and building a lot of personal and professional projects while I was learning. The most significant factor in this journey for me was making learning a daily habit. Whether it was 20 minutes or a few hours, I made sure I devoted time every day to enhance my skills.

Even after landing my first dev role, I continued this daily learning. Participating in initiatives like #100DaysofCode hashtag on Twitter or X which helped me stay accountable and motivated. People often ask me in these digital spaces about how I make the most out of my workshops and bootcamps, and I always share these four things that have been most influential for me:

The first is Consistent, Daily Learning: I’d recommend dedicating a specific time each day for learning if you can. Like I mentioned, this varied from minutes to hours on any given day for me. Making learning a priority is much easier if you intentionally block out time. Having structure from a workshop may help in this, doing a lesson each day, but you can also make a roadmap yourself to help keep you on track.

The next tip is about Accountability: Engaging in challenges or using social media is a great way to hold yourself accountable. Sharing your progress publicly can be a powerful motivator, especially if you’re committing to something like 100 consecutive days of coding, you have to keep coming back. Most workshops also have channels like Discord or Slack to chat with other people that are also learning.

Which brings me to my third point, Finding Community: Joining a community can be really rewarding while learning a new skill. Engaging in discussions, asking and answering questions not only solidifies what you’re learning, but also helps to build skills in communication (especially if communicating in tech is new to you, as it was for me). I also mentioned my partner is a software engineer. If you’re lucky enough to find some mentorship or even really great cheerleaders in your friends and family, that also helps when you’re trying to achieve a learning goal.

And finally, Applied Learning: Another important thing I often stress is applying what you’re learning to a project outside of your structured lessons or tutorials. The EpicWeb workshops offered the opportunity to practice concepts on your own and see it being used in an actual application which always helped me to leave theory and see the code in action. I’d even take that one step further and have a side project that you complete alongside your workshops. As you learn more about routes in your lessons, hop over to your side project and improve your routes, and so on. It also forces you to venture out into the wild of Googling how to do something complex, which is a skill in and of itself. It also helps when you’re ready to enter the job market and you have all of these wonderful projects to show to potential employers.

In conclusion, the secret to making the most out of your learning investment is definitely consistency, setting small, daily goals and holding yourself accountable, and being part of a supportive network like the great people of Epic Web.