In my opinion I had a great 2016!
I continued taking improv classes and participating in Toastmasters. In Toastmasters, I went and competed in a Humorous Speech Contest. At the speech contest, I spoke in front of about 25 strangers. In my improv classes, I performed in audiences of 20+ people to about 50. I like to think 2016 was the year that I got comfortable being in front of people.
As far as tech skills, I did get a good understanding of nodejs and I got myself an introduction to ReactJS and AngularJS. I also started to go to various coding meetups around Indianapolis.
Unfortunately, I thought I could have done more studying. I lost a little bit of time due to volunteering and working on my social skills. I did good work volunteering and my social skills did increase, however the cost was not making as much progress as I would have liked to have seen. 2017 will be different because the animal rescue I volunteered at is closing their mall location and I will not be doing another volunteering role for a while. I’m planning on using that time for studying. As for my social skills, I’ll probably continue Toastmasters and I’ll see about improv. I’m debating about continuing it or just taking a long break.
If 2016 was the year I made great improvements in my communication skills, I’m hoping that 2017 will be the year that I made great improvements in my tech skills.
My goals for this year are:
- Getting a stronger understanding of AngularJS and ReactJS.
- Get a good understanding of Docker.
- Get some exposure to mobile application development.
- Speak at a meetup.
- Add some technical posts to this blog.