Stage 5 · Lesson 2 of 7

A project from your old field

Your strongest work will usually be : one that solves a problem you know from your previous degree or job. It could be a tool that replaces a painful , an automated weekly report, an analysis of public data from your industry, or a for software your old field depends on.

A project like this is original and hard to copy. It shows your , your inside knowledge of an industry, and gives you a story people remember. Talk to one or two people who have the problem, then build the smallest thing that helps.

Recreate the data with fake records. Never use real client, patient or employer data.

Common trapbuilding the same to-do list, weather app or film search clone as thousands of other beginners.

A question to check yourself, an AI practice session and 2 cheat sheet entries come when you add the roadmap to your account. Add it

Resources for this stage

Start with

BookFree
Automate the Boring Stuff with Python
Al Sweigart · Beginner
Free book on automating spreadsheets, files and reports: ideal for projects from your old job

Practise

First Contributions
A guided first pull request, so your first real contribution is not your first time using Git
Good First Issue
Beginner-friendly issues in active projects once you have done a practice pull request

Keep handy

Kaggle Datasets
Public datasets from many industries, often including the field you came from
Hashnode
A free developer blog for your write-ups and case studies

Also worth your time

Learn In PublicRead
The short essay behind learning in public, and why it keeps paying off