Sharing tips, resources and doses of motivation to help you start and finish the 100 Days of Code Challenge.
License: Creative Commons Zero v1.0 Universal
100dayschallenge's Introduction
#100DaysChallenge for Techies
I created this repo to share tips, resources and doses of motivation to help you start and finish the 100 Days Learning Challenge, whether you want to learn software engineering, UI/UX design, data science, data engineering, open source, etc. Learning resources can be found here.
Join the Slack community for this Challenge to meet like-minded people and collaborate on projects.
Don't forget to follow me on Twitter for more tech and career content. Also feel free to tag me in your daily projects and lessons during this Challenge.
Week 1
Day
Theme
Tip
1
Interest in Challenge
You are here because you want to be a part of the #100DaysChallenge. You probably would like to use today to think through your motivation for wanting to participate in this Challenge. Is it to gain new skills to apply for a new role, ask for a promotion, build projects, start a company or have fun? Whatever reason you have is valid. Welcome to the Challenge.
2
Goals and Quiz
You decided to embark on a journey to invest in yourself. Congrats! This will be a good time to set some goals and put them in writing. What do you want to achieve by the end of the 100 days? If you're still unsure of what to learn, take this quiz: https://www.codecademy.com/explore/sorting-quiz.
3
Accountability Partner
"If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together." Having an accountability partner on your learning journey can be a source of support and motivation to keep going. Are you searching for an accountability partner? Share your interests and connect with others here.
4
Finding the Best Courses and Tutorials
Wondering where to find the best online courses and tutorials in Programming, Data Science, DevOps and Design? Go to https://hackr.io/. When a course or tutorial is submitted, the community upvotes and the best rises to the top.
Ideally, you'd want to have a personal computer to use for your tech lessons & projects. However, some circumstances may not allow that. You're still not left behind. You can use mobile apps like Sololearn, Mimo, Udemy, DataCamp, etc to learn.
7
When to Build Projects
Should you try to learn everything before building projects or build projects while you're learning? I suggest building projects (no matter how small) as you learn to appreciate the practical application of the course material.
Week 2
Day
Theme
Tip
8
Joining Communities
When you join the right tech communities, you become part of a support system, get access to resources, mentors and opportunities to give back. Read this post about the importance of tech communities and recommendations of which ones you can join.
9
Remote Pair Programming
Have you considered remote pair programming? With this, you can share your screen with someone to collaboratively design, build and review projects. Anyone, in any stage of their learning journey can participate in pair programming.
10
Show Your Work
I know some people are comfortable with sharing their projects publicly while others are not. Sharing your projects and learning progress publicly using platforms like GitHub, LinkedIn, Twitter and Medium helps with accountability and consistency, and exposes you to potential recruiters and mentors.
11
Git and GitHub
On the topic of openly sharing your work, GitHub is one of the perfect places to do so. Not only do you get to show your work, you can contribute to other people's projects. If you're new to Git and GitHub, read this article: https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/git-and-github-for-beginners/.
12
Screen Recordings
Aside sharing screenshots and links, you could do screen recordings of your projects using an app like OBS Studio and share on platforms like LinkedIn. Video content does well on LinkedIn and could help increase your visibility on the platform.
13
Twitter Spaces
People are gaining knowledge, hearing of job opportunities, meeting new people and getting access to resources by participating in Twitter Spaces. This is a personal and professional development opportunity right at your fingertips. If interested, RSVP for my tech and career Twitter Spaces at http://spaceswithivy.com.
14
Taking Notes
One thing you should do in your learning journey is to take notes that you can refer to in the future. Some note-taking apps like Notion have features for adding images, boards, code blocks that support multiple programming languages, wikis, etc. My favorite note-taking app is Notion. What about you?
Week 3
Day
Theme
Tip
15
Create Your Cheat Sheet
On the topic of taking notes while you learn, you can even create your own cheat sheets for quick referencing. You can create cheat sheets using https://cheatography.com/. They also have over 4,000 free cheat sheets and quick references.
16
Google or Bing it
You don't know everything and that's okay. No one does anyway. If it's taking you forever to solve a problem or you need further explanation on a topic, Google or Bing it. Someone is very likely to have been in your shoes before.
17
Stack Overflow
Are you getting stuck because of the stack you chose? Go to StackOverflow to learn from others' experiences with similar challenges. It can get overwhelming at the beginning but you'd get the hang of it as times goes on.
18
subreddits
If you are looking for online communities around what you are learning, consider joining subreddits on those topics. There are subreddits on almost every area of tech you could think of and the people in these communities are usually supportive.
19
Twitter Topics
Do you know about the Topics feature on Twitter? With this, you can personalize your timeline by following topics that are of interest to you. There are diverse technical and non-technical topics you can follow to curate your timeline as you learn.
20
Teach Someone Else
Did you recently learn how APIs work? Or the importance of customer empathy when building products? Try teaching someone something you learnt this week. Research shows that explaining something to other people helps us understand it better.
21
3-week Check
It's been 3 weeks since we started the 2022 #100DaysChallenge to learn new tech skills and openly share our journey online. People are learning UI/UX design, data engineering, product management, technical writing, software development, etc. How has it been so far?
When developing a new habit like learning a new skill, consistency is key. You don't always have to feel like learning but still show up anyway, even if it's for a few minutes. Don't underestimate the power of consistency.
25
Follow Tech Professionals
I saw a tweet that said that the only 2 tech professionals you'd see on Twitter are programmers and UI/UX designers. False. 😂 On social media platforms like Twitter, you'd find people who specialize in different areas of tech (both technical and non-technical) who share a lot of useful resources. Follow them.
"The more I learn, the more I grow. The more I grow, the more value I can add to myself and my community". This is my quote for learning. Do you have one?
31
Free Self-taught CS Education
The OSSU curriculum is a complete online education in Computer Science. It’s for those who want a proper, well-rounded grounding in concepts fundamental to all computing disciplines. Get started today: https://github.com/ossu/computer-science.
32
Frontend Mentor
With https://www.frontendmentor.io/, you can choose a challenge, code the design, submit your solution and give others feedback. Start solving real-world HTML, CSS and JavaScript challenges today.
33
UI/UX Design Bookmarks
If you are learning UI/UX design, https://www.evernote.design/ has loads of design resources, inspiration and tips.
34
Data Science Competitions and Community
For those learning data science, you will find competitions, hackathons and courses to participate in for free on https://www.kaggle.com/ and https://zindi.africa/. There are also public datasets, notebooks and discussion forums.
35
Discord and Slack Communities
Are you part of any helpful Discord and Slack communities for the skills you are learning? If not, reach out to people in the industry for recommendations. If you're part of this Challenge, a good starting point will be the Slack community we set up. Join here.
Week 6
Day
Theme
Tip
36
Life Happens
If you have skipped some of the days for learning, don't be too hard on yourself. Life happens. Whenever you are ready to come back to it, you are welcome to continue the journey. 🤗
37
VS Code Plugin
Some devs use tools like Code Time (a VS Code plugin) to protect code time and stay in flow. This helps them to log their daily learning progress, metrics, and milestones.
Interested in Cybersecurity? The TryHackMe Pre Security Learning Path will give you the pre-requisite technical knowledge to get started: https://tryhackme.com/path/outline/presecurity.
Take some time today to reach out to someone else who's on this learning journey to share words of encouragement. We're winning together this year.
46
A Design Career on Uxcel
Get access to a library of interactive UI/UX design courses, test your design skills and browse a UI/UX job board dedicated only to designers on https://uxcel.com/.
47
Writing Articles
One way to document your learning journey is to write articles on a schedule that works for you. You can use these articles to explain concepts you're learning. If you forget something, you can refer to your articles, and others could even benefit from them.
If you are learning data science, the University of Michigan has an Introduction to Probability for Data Science book that they have made available to the public for free at https://probability4datascience.com/.
Week 8
Day
Theme
Tip
50
Halfway Through
Congrats! We are halfway through with the 100 Days Learning Challenge. How has the learning journey been for you? Any wins? Any challenges? Any tips? Feel free to share in the Slack community.
51
Career Karma
On Career Karma (https://careerkarma.com/), you'll find bootcamps, career guides, scholarships, resources, community, mentors, coaches and live events to help you navigate your tech career.
On the first day of this Challenge, we did some goal-setting for our learning journey. If you haven't reviewed your goals recently, this is a good time to do so. If you haven't set learning goals yet, this is a good time to do so.
Get familiar with how GitHub works via GitHub Learning Labs (https://lab.github.com/) with free courses and learning paths on GitHub, DevOps, programming languages and tools. You can also work on hands-on lessons and get access to a helpful bot.
One cool thing about ADPList is that you can have mentorship sessions on specific topics, including Breaking into Tech, Resume and Portfolio Review, Negotiating a Job Offer, etc. Choose your next mentorship topic at https://adplist.org/explore?tab=topics.
59
800 Free CS Classes
This repo has 800 free Computer Science classes you can take online right now. Topics include Systems Programming, Artificial Intelligence, Security, Math, Blockchain, etc.
60
Free LinkedIn Learning, Microsoft Learn and GitHub Learning Lab Courses
Attending tech events is a great way for you to learn new skills and expand your network. With the ongoing pandemic, many tech events are now virtual or hybrid. You can find tech events of interest on Eventbrite, Meetup, social media platforms and communities you are part of.
Register for the Microsoft Spring Skills Challenge to get access to free certifications, learning paths and trainings in Azure Fundamentals, Azure Data Fundamentals, Microsoft Security and Compliance among others.
69
Data Science Book
Here is a free book to learn Julia Programming, Math & Data Science from Scratch.
70
Almost There
Guess what? We've completed 70% of the 100 Days Learning Challenge. Now, that's something!
Improve your technical writing skills by taking one of Google's free technical writing courses. Thousands of Google software engineers have taken and loved these courses: https://developers.google.com/tech-writing/announcements.
Interested in Web3? https://www.learnweb3.io/ has tons of free resources to learn DAOs, DeFi, Smart Contracts and NFTs. You can also join their Discord server where you can connect with the Web3 community and participate in hackathons and events.
95
Expand your Network on LinkedIn and Twitter
Aim to connect to people on LinkedIn and Twitter who are on the same learning journey as you, work in the companies you aspire to work at or are thought leaders in your areas of interest. Remember your network is your net-worth.
As you plan, design and build products, do you have people with disabilities in mind? Here is a free tool by Microsoft that tests websites and mobile apps for accessibility errors and provides recommendations to fix them: https://accessibilityinsights.io/. Are you committed to building inclusive software?
Week 15
Day
Theme
Tip
98
Add New Skills to LinkedIn
As you have spent time gaining these skills, you may want to update your LinkedIn profile with your newly acquired skills and ask people who are familiar with your skills to endorse you for them on LinkedIn. You can also take assessments for these skills directly on LinkedIn. If you score in the top 30%, LinkedIn will display your badge on your profile.
99
Reflect on Your Journey
With only a day left to the end of the Challenge, today is a good day to reflect on your learning journey so far. What worked for you or didn't? What did you learn? What challenges did you face? Did you meet any new people? What's next with your tech journey? Carve out some time today to think through these questions, reflect and decide on your next steps beyond this Challenge.
100
You Made It
Congrats on completing the #100DaysChallenge! 🎉 This isn't the end but only the beginning. Learning never stops. Keep at it. You got this and you belong in tech.
React
Typescript
Django
Laravel
Facebook
Microsoft
Google
Alibaba
D3
Tencent