From Pastry Chef to Web Developer

Oxy — Wed, 05 May 2021 21:22:35 +0000

Hi! I’m Oksana.

This is my first post and I wanted to share my journey to becoming a software developer.

Since I was 17, I had been working as a chef / pastry chef. I never felt that it was the right job for me and I always knew it was not what I wanted to be doing for the rest of my life. But I didn’t know what I wanted to do instead.

Since moving to London in 2016, I've been lucky to be surrounded by people involved with tech or software. I noticed they are proud of what they do and they feel that they make a difference. They have always been helpful and inspirational for me to join them in this field.
For some reason, software development seemed like one of the most exciting parts of tech to me.
But programming was something very new and unfamiliar to me and I wasn’t sure if I had the “talent for it”.
In spite of all doubts and fears I decided to give it a try.

Self-learning

So, in the beginning of 2020, I started learning web development on freeCodeCamp and Codecademy in my spare time.
I won’t say it was a smooth ride, as it was an “on and off” experience. Sometimes I was frustrated with my progress and that lowered my self-esteem because most of the time I felt challenged and it seemed like my brain became my enemy.

It was quite hard for me to understand concepts of programming and basic JavaScript stuff. Surprisingly, one of the most challenging parts was to learn how to study on my own. I didn’t have a proper study plan, I was jumping from one thing to another and couldn’t manage my time properly.

Learning with CodeYourFuture

One day, I saw an advertisement for this free coding school for disadvantaged groups in the UK, called CodeYourFuture on Facebook. I decided to apply -even though I had about a week to complete all their requirements.
Most of their requirements are based on freeCodeCamp, which I was luckily already studying. They also conducted interviews to make sure people would be committed to the course.

I am currently in the 6th month of the course and it’s been really amazing. A major difference compared to learning by myself is the excellent teachers and volunteers supporting us during every step. All trainees are helping each other to move forward, it feels like a team effort. I have made friends during the course and we are rooting for each other to succeed.

So here I will be writing about some things I have learnt with CodeYourFuture on the path to becoming a web developer.

DEV Community: Oxy

From Pastry Chef to Web Developer

Self-learning

Learning with CodeYourFuture