The most challenging part of TreeHouse was understanding the concepts, which would be hard for anybody learning new material. At first the website coding HTML and CSS seemed like a huge wall of words that I’d never understand. I felt extremely overwhelmed and didn’t know what to do, but then I reminded myself that learning new things comes with a process. The interesting part of TreeHouse is how well they are able to explain complex information and convert it into something simple and easy to understand. Now I’m steadily learning new techniques and vocabulary that build on the previous lessons that I learn, and I’m slowly but surely developing good web design techniques.

The biggest take away I’ve gotten from our speakers is that everything comes with practice, experience, and diligence. When we were introduced to our speakers and learned what they did we were all stunned by what they’ve accomplished. Yet, they both reminded us that it happened over a period of time not just right away. Personally I have an issue with patience and letting things gradually come. Normally I just wanted it to happen right then and there, through this I think I’ll have better discipline with my patience. They also opened my eyes up to how important tech is today, and the various opportunities there are to use it. I love seeing successful people talk passionately about what they believe. It made me want to be able to fill their shoes, or put on my own, one day especially Ms. Fitzpatrick.

I’m really excited about what’s next because I know in my heart that something amazing is going to come out of all this frustrating work. I like how we are already creating bonds and feel comfortable with each other. I wish this is how it always is between young ladies, but unfortunately that’s not always the case.

Last week was very relaxed, yet mostly focused until Wednesday. On the 27th, we got the mission to design websites for a business by the end of the day. Immediately I panicked. I was scared that my group wouldn’t get it done especially because we had no idea what direction our client was going. I feel like we worked collaboratively in our group and each brought interesting and unique ideas to the table. Also, our speakers last week gave us new concepts to think about.

Last week we began Swift, and Dr. Franklin came in as a speaker along with a former participant in Empowered, Akwelle. Everything Dr. Franklin did was pretty impressive I’d never see myself going through another 12 years of school willingly. You could tell that she was dedicated to being an OB/GYN. Something that stuck with me from what she said was that sometimes you have to battle with uncertainty and that time is something we have 0 control over.

This week I continued Swift playgrounds. At first I enjoyed it, but as it got harder and harder I started to despise it and realize how much I really dislike video games. I tended to get irritated with characters because when I didn’t progress they made these rude movements, so I’d switch them out. At times I’d be stuck for half an hour before passing the level, and this week I finally started to ask for and need help.