🎅 2021 in Review

2021 was a little bit chaotic cause I went through real productive months to the ones, where I achieved nothing.

In 2021 I learned to rest, appreciate weekends, be more mindful and had my first vacation in 3 years (highly recommended).

And in the end, 2021 was a year that created questions, I need to find answers for.

Here's the small review of my year. ⤵️

Table of contents

• Timeline
• Statistics
• Book of the year
• Application of the year
• Movie of the year
• TV-show of the year
• Course of the year
• Achievement of the year
• Image of the year

Timeline

Here's the small timeline of things I've achieved during the year.

2021

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Obtained a Master's Degree in Psychology 🎓
I've obtained Master's Degree in Human Psychology and the topic of my thesis was "Internet Addiction". I hope I will publish the article in one of journals so you can read it.
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Speaker at Dev Fest 📣
I had a talk regarding education in Armenia in Vanadzor. See more.
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Speaker at BarCamp Gyumri 📣
Burnout vs IT. How we suffer in comfortable offices.
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Started Tech for Non-tech Course and taught 200+ people
I've taught Tech for Non-Tech course for more than 200 students. Included:
• Employees of Krisp
• Employees of Ministry of High-Tech Industry of Armenia
• Product Managers of different IT Companies — CoinStats, InecoBank, SoloLearn, etc.
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Speaker at BarCamp Vanadzor 📣
How to become an Engineer?
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Launched Frontend BootCamp with ACA
We've started Frontend BootCamp with ISA agreement and taught 45+ people. As a result we have around 70% rate of employment for different IT companies.

Included: Krisp, SoloLearn, SoftConstruct, MentorCliq, Innoma.
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Speaker at BarCamp Dilijan 📣
First 100 days as a Junior. How to survive?
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Launched HyeBox
My brother and I developed and launched HyeBox website.
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Launched aca.am
Launched aca.am website.
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Speaker at Tech Week in Artsakh 📣
How to become an engineer: most common mistakes by learners.
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Taught Advanced Frontend Course
Frontend Course for 15+ people.
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use-react-screenshot Become Popular 🎊
`use-react-screenshot`is library I created back in the 2019. Now it's become popular and around 1500+ people using it weekly.
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Created use-react-countries open-source Library
`use-react-countries` is a open-source tiny fully customizable react library(hook) which gives you full list of countries with their flags, emojis, country calling codes, postal codes and many more...
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Had a webinar 'How to choose a programming language'
I've hosted a webinar on picking a programming infrastructure with 100+ people.

Statistics

Book of the year

Peter Thiele's "From 0 to 1" describes Silicon Valley's history and products in the nutshell.

He tells the story of great products by giving almost scientific explanation of the main components of which the company should be composed.

Great book if you want to understand how the market works and what you should do to have a place in there.

See other great books I read:

• Check

  The Hard Thing About Hard Things
  Ben Horowitz
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  A Mom Test
  Rob FitzPatrick
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  Making of a manager
  Julie Zhuo
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  From 0 to 1
  Peter Thiele
• Check

  Burnout Survival Kit
  Inogen Dal
• Check

  javascript.info
  Ilya Kantor and team
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  The miracle morning
  Hal Elrod
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  Man's search for meaning
  Viktor Frankl

Application of the year

Although I found Headspace a few days ago, it completely changed the way I go to the gym. No, you got it wrong, I mean mental gym, because Headspace is a great application that helps you to live more mindful.

• Mastering and making meditation a habit
• Letting Stress and Anxiety go
• Mindful Eating

a little list of things headspace helps you to achieve. It's like a great psychologist just in your pocket.

Other recommendations:

• Spotify — is an application that changed the way I use music. Its algorithms are understanding me better than any of my friends. In the recent update, they even add lyrics and make the ideal application even better.

• If you are a macOS user, then you must have Setapp.

  Setapp is a subscription for a bunch of great services that make life easier:

  • Paste — smart clipboard history
  • CleanMyMac — emptying RAM, smart delete system, protection, and many more...
  • Magnet — window manager you were dreaming about

• Yandex Comfort+ and Business

  During the year I decided to stop using any other than Comfort+ and Business Plans. The Decision changed the quality of my life and experience. Now using taxis is not a bunch of stress anymore.

• Netflix

  As always, my big love for watching TV Shows and Movies

Movie of The Year

Don't Look UP is an absolute winner in the category.

Leo DiCaprio, Jennifer Lawrence, and great Meryl Streep are hurting a little bit by showing the reality we are leaving in. Great team and the even better idea behind are making "Don't look UP" the best movie I watched.

Other recommendations:

• Spider-Man: No Way Home
• House of Gucci
• The Mauritanian
• Dune

See the list of all movies I watch on LetterBox

TV-Show of the year

The last season of "You" was shocking for me. I was waiting yet another development of the same problems of Joe, but this time the show was not only about one hero, but about a bunch of problems that torture modern society:

• Relationships after wedding and marriage in 2021
• Postpartum depression
• Virtual vs Real
• Falsy standards and beliefs

At the same time, it shows that heroes want to change, they do their best in the fight against habits and sinful wishes. In the end, they fail but need to continue to live.

Other recommendations:

• Money Heist
• Sex Education
• Squid Games
• Vikings

See the list of all tv-shows I watch on MyShows

Course of the year

Google's Certified Project Management course is an absolute winner for me.

It consists of 6 courses that cover Project Initialization, Execution, Closing, Scrum, and even a capstone.

I have completed 4/6 during the year, but even now the knowledge and The expertise I got is beyond any expectations.

The course every PM should take.

Achievement of the year

Now I'm a Master in Psychology.

• Internet addiction
• Сlip Сulture
• Losing the ability to read books
• The phenomenon of social network apps

All these topics are in the middle of my scientific interests and I tried to research and cover them in the work.

Hopefully, the thesis will be published and available very soon so I can share it.

Image of the year

Artsakh. Stage. Me.