Now that we’re into Q4 of 2024, I’ve been reflecting on what goals I want to complete before the year is over.

There’s always a lot going on at the end of the year. Friends and family plans, fall events, holidays. End of year business goals and wrapping up projects. Hobbies that are geared toward fall and winter. I want to have a plan for my career goals so I make sure I’m focusing on them alongside everything else.

Goal #1: Make progress in Harvard’s CS50 Introduction to Computer Science

I’ve been working through this CS class in sprints as I’ve had time and mental space. I’m taking my time with it to make sure I’m fully absorbing the information. Plus, since there are coding projects each week, I’m a little slow. That’s the reason my goal is to make progress and not necessarily to complete the course—I don’t want to rush through it, but I’d like to keep completing projects and assignments.

It’s structured like this:

  • Week 0 Scratch
  • Week 1 C
  • Week 2 Arrays
  • Week 3 Algorithms
  • Week 4 Memory
  • Week 5 Data Structures
  • Week 6 Python
  • Week 6.5 Artificial Intelligence
  • Week 7 SQL
  • Week 8 HTML, CSS, JavaScript
  • Week 9 Flask
  • Week 10 Cybersecurity

The course starts by having you implement a project in Scratch (week 0), which is a drag-and-drop UI for learning coding concepts. It’s marketed for kids and it’s very simple—but it gave me some confidence when I had to write functions in C the following week.

All your work is submitted through a GitHub Codespace via Visual Studio Code, so you get a lot of practice using VSCode and Git. Since I already had that experience, it was easy to get started (plus it’s good to flex the muscle).

Goal #2: Attend LavaCon 2024 in Portland, OR

I try to attend at least one in-person professional conference per year. In past years, I’ve attended Write the Docs Portland, which I hope to attend next year, and FOSS4G NA Baltimore, a conference about open-source geospatial software.

This year, I’m planning to attend LavaCon Portland, a content strategy conference. There are speakers planned from Google, Cisco, Meta, MadCap, Adobe, the list goes on… and each of them play a different role in product content strategy. I signed up for a workshop on Google Analytics and I can’t wait to learn more about content strategy. I’ll also be attending with my coworker, who happens to be a Content Strategist, which makes it even better.

Goal #3: Take Tom Johnson’s course Documenting APIs: A guide for technical writers and engineers

This has been on my career to-do list for a long time. I’ve skimmed through much of the course and I completed Chapter 1, but I want to commit to taking it by creating a course plan for myself.

I’ve been interested in API documentation for quite some time. There’s a lot to like: structured reference documentation (ok, maybe that’s not appealing to everyone…), working with code samples, using developer tools, learning about a fundamental part of the way the internet works. I also view it as a way to step up in my career which frankly, I’m always looking for ways to do.

Here’s what I’ve done so far:

  • Learned about different types of APIs and how they’re used
  • Installed Postman and practiced submitting a request
  • Explored the OpenWeatherMap API, which is the example API used in the course

I also have a lofty goal of blogging about my experience taking the course, though that’ll slow me down a lot.

Goal #4: Become Agile certified

Luckily, my company is hosting this training, so it’s a streamlined process for me. I’m scheduled for the training and I’ll be taking the exam later this year.

Though I may not complete everything by the end of 2024, I like to have a roadmap for what I want to achieve. It helps me stay focused making progress towards what I want, rather than paying attention to things I don’t care about as much.

I’m always curious how other people plan their professional goals. Do you structure your goals into actionable tasks, or are your goals more of an idea that you’re iteratively working towards? At times, I do a little bit of both. But I like to come up with to-do items (and write them down in a more public way) so I can see my progress, stay on track, and have something to say for all my hard work.