My experience in programming as a Gazan 16-year-old teenager.
Introduction
The first time I did know about coding/programming is when I was10–11. I was playing video games like Minecraft and contributing to gaming communities. And that is when I got told about code. For example, create a server. So players can join the server and play with their friends. Or host servers so other community owners can host their servers under my hosting. And that is one of the main reasons I started looking for places to learn to code.
School
As a Gazan refugee at 12–13 of his age. Our schools did not have that kind of knowledge & technology to introduce grade 7 students to programming. The only thing they taught us was Scratch, And honestly, it was not the best experience to get a background in programming.
self-taught
As I mentioned, Gazan refugee schools were not the place to get information about programming. So in 2017–2018, I started to educate myself in programming. And I Watched YouTubers talking about programming such as -BenAwad, Traversy Media, and Dev Ed-. And reading articles, which helped me to learn English besides programming, and I did a lot of things while learning about programming on web development and hosting servers. Where I sold programmed-bots to play music at -TeamSpeak-. And then hosted servers for other players to host their game servers. Not to mention that apps and websites like Discord, GitHub helped me a lot with my learning path! In Discord, I used to join other developers' servers such as Python, The Coding Den, or any other programming framework/language discord server.
Then in the middle of 2017, I saw a Facebook post about IRL meetings every Saturday at GazaSkyGeeks, where they teach newbies web development. So at this moment, I had some knowledge about web development, so I said: why not learn more! And meet new people there. So I applied to join their meetings.
GazaSkyGeeks
My first day during their IRL meetings was very awkward, Maybe because I did not know anyone there. And I was the only kid there. At that time, I showed some skills there. As a 12–13 years old kid who knows how to code. I felt excited there, but as I said: it was awkward.
Final exams came, which was one of the main reasons I stopped participating in their IRL meetings. after a week, I kept learning about Javascript, jQuery, and Gulp. And CSS such as Scss, Bootstrap, and other CSS tricks at CSS-tricks.
Freelancing
February 18, 2019, I joined -GazaSkyGeeks’s- Freelance training course. I learned how to talk with clients. How to propose to different jobs, and learned how to make a brand of myself on Twitter or any social media platform, and indeed it was such a great course.
Code For Palestine
May 10, 2020, I got accepted in Code For Palestine. If you guys do not know what Code For Palestine is, it is a program that takes teenagers to teach them about Python, React and React Native, and it is a three years program. I wanted to learn to React, and it’s a good thing to learn something with a mentor.
And currently, I am learning Next.js and working on my final project for my first year in Code for Palestine using React.js.
Final Chapter
I am 16 years old, and I am very grateful for everything. And I want to thank my family, my friends. And everyone who encouraged me during this part of the time in my life.
