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Awixor's story

 — #Career#Bio

The story behind my nickname

My name is EL Houcine Aouassar, also known as Awixor. I first was inspired by Smakosh to take that nickname. At some point in my life, I had to move to another city. Some words in my old accent is a little different from what people there speak, and the word awixor is one of them. It means wait a minute or take it easy, but they didn't stop calling me that (Awixor) because they found it weird.

The place I was born in

I was born in a small village where everyone knows everyone. Up there in the Anti-Atlas mountains, somewhere near Tafraoute, life is simple. I still visit my home town every summer.

Me

Career

Primary school

In first grade, I got some sweet teachers Khadija and Aziza. They were so kind to us, but they left at the end of the year. For the rest of my primary school, I got taught only by male teachers, and they were tough. Maybe this was the reason why I've always hated primary school. However, in my last year, the new teacher Khalid changed me a lot. I loved that man, and I appreciate what he did for us. I know, how can I still remember their names, actually I do not forget names of the teachers who loved their job and tried everything they could to prepare us for the next level in life.

Middle school

I became a hard-working student after my last primary year. I meet some smart kids. My grades got improved. As usual, I loved some teachers and hated some. Everything went well. Until the day we got to make some decisions about what track should we follow and what school is better for us.

High school

During high school, I got a new computer. I loved it and gave it a lot of time, exploring the web and how things work. I learned so many things and faced so many problems and fixed them by myself. Since then, I have learned the power of googling. At that time, I discovered Photoshop and how websites are made. I also tried creating my own things and ideas, but I had no time back then, too busy with school (Homeworks, projects, blablabla).

College

I got tired of finishing high school, so I didn't give much thought to college's major. I and some friend chose to study physics, another miserable choice. Meanwhile, I spent more time on my computer. I learned more things about web dev, like HTML CSS JS, and some Photoshop tips and tricks, as I had more free time. College didn't go well for me. I hated what I was doing, Physics and all that chemical equations are not made for me.

I quit

Associate's degree

In my city, there was only one associate degree major that teaches computer science-related. It was about networking and computer systems. However, I was more into web and software development, but I can't afford to study in another city where a web dev major exists. So I learned through a very busy training and topics a lot of things about networking (CCNA), and GNU/linux, windows systems (client/server), and learned some basics of databases :

My passion for web development didn't change but evolved. I tried to learn besides what's in school. Then use what I've learned in projects teachers gave us. I learned some Laravel and MongoDB back then and built a website with them, I've always been dreamy, optimistic and my ambition has no bounds, but rather than helping, some teachers break you down, just to show the professor's authority over you. It happened to me and many students I've got to know. I got first in my class, but I lost my passion for traditional schools and started thinking of dropping out of school.

During the first year I got two other degree from Microsoft:

  • Windows® Networking Fundamentals: verify here with code HQK7-XLRX
  • Windows® Operating System Fundamentals: verify here with code EbyE-XVMp

Self-teaching

First, I did some research and contacted some friends, one of them is Smakosh that I mentioned above, he's a very kind person who helped me alot. After defining my track, I started from scratch re-learning web basics HTML / CSS / JAVASCRIPT and I got these certificats from the amazing freeCodeCamp website:

and also this one from Udacity:

After, I learned ReactJs, Redux with class-based components and then with hooks, Sass, Styled-components, Firebase, and how to use Git, Gatsby js , Next js and a lot of things. Learning while freelancing. Maybe I will write an article about my self-teaching road map in the upcoming days, and go through details.

Hobbies

I always loved gaming, I spent a lot of time playing a variety of game, but I preferred the FPS type. I still play online games with friends. Games helped me in problem-solving and always been an interesting source of inspiration and learning.

Last words

This is my first blog post, I might have forgotten something so I'll be editing it.

You can find me anywhere on the web by awixor.