Inspired by a couple of people whose blogs I read, I decided to do a retro for the year.
2021 was a big year for me, I had absolutely no idea that it was going to be back in January, but I think I've started 2022 in a pretty decent position.
I will continue to update my learning Trello as and when I have learnt more and more things, but may have to migrate some bits for 2022.
I have also discovered Linktr.ee which is keeping all my "things" together- blog/ band twitter/ trello board etc.
I'm pretty impressed with even the free version.
Note: before March I did not know even what Testers were or did! My partner suggested I applied for the Coders Guild software testers bootcamp, and given all that spare time brought about from Covid/ working from home/ nowhere being open, I had plenty of spare time!
My Wins:
March-June: Completed the Coders Guild bootcamp- I know they're starting a Manchester one very soon, I definately reccomend this!
July- Time to start applying/ looking for jobs. I updated my CV and Trello learning board, so I had something to look at. As I mentioned in my last post I got an interview, for a website building company. Unfortunately didn't get that post, but the wonderful Beth Marshall who was fantastic during the bootcamp, managed to find me a junior position at Smoothwall. I resigned from my role shortly after and started the long wait to starting a new job!
August- I started in the middle of August (and instantly regretted taking all of my holidays as paid from my last role- a VERY steep learning curve
Fast forward to getting through probation but also being the very first junior tester to be featured on the "Testers Island Discs" podcast with the lovely (and patient, given my nerves,) Neil Studd with the Ministry of Testing. This was recorded back in the middle of November, and was the last of the year (before the xmas spectacular, which I also had a segment in)
All in all the last 4 months of the year flew by and I've never been happier. Even had the confidence to take part in the Minstry of Testing 'Christmas party' in which I spectacularly failed at the testing tools anagram round, but did well with the music/ films!
2022:
More learning opportunities and personal development
A HUGE level up with automation so I can be much more involved at work with it
Meet ups- both in person and online
More blog posts/ activity within the community
A holiday abroad maybe, hopefully?!
Happy New Year everyone, lets hope it's a good one.