My Coding Journey - Soldier Who Codes

In January of 2019 I began contemplating my plans for the future. I was now 37 years old and after spending 17 years in the military in Jamaica I was becoming tired of the routine and needed to move on.

Now moving onto another career in this part of the world is easier said that done, because unlike other parts of the world, Jamaica has a degree culture. Meaning that no matter how skilled you are both practically and theoretically, it is almost impossible to get a job, especially in a technical area without a degree.

After starting a degree in economics approximately 5 years earlier it fell through because of financial reasons. However, over that time my passion moved from economics to tech. So in August 2019 I enrolled at a local community college and began a degree in Management Information Systems. The first semester to me was tougher that basic military training, literally.

We were first introduced to C# and boy did I struggle with this especially the concept of arrays. I remember one day I sat and cried and asked myself what the hell was I getting myself into. But we had a lecturer who would continually reiterate to us, whenever we were not getting a concept, that it was normal and that we should relax. My acceptance and realization of his reasoning came home one Sunday morning while scrolling through YouTube videos.

I came upon a video by Gyasi Linje who was basically sharing his own struggles that he went through initially. From that moment my outlook changed and I began approaching every concept with more positivity. At the same time I started to understand that even professional programmers used Google and Stack Overflow.

Two semesters later I got introduced to web development (HTML/CSS, JavaScript). In that course I struggled with understanding the logic of JavaScript. I was still able to successfully complete the course, however, I was not comfortable with my understanding of JS. Once the semester ended I worked on gaining a better understanding of JS and built a travel site using JS.

However, at the end of that process it was apparent that I had rushed through and skipped a lot of the fundamentals. Nine months later I am slowly going through to ensure that I get a full understanding of JS and I am at a place now where I am lot more comfortable with it.

PLANS FOR THE FUTURE

For the near future once I am comfortable that I have covered the fundamentals of JS I will move on to learning NodeJS and then ReactJS or VueJS.

I still have not made up my mind on what career path in IT I want to follow but for now I'm enjoying the journey.

Thanks for the taking the time out to read my post. It is truly appreciated. If you want to know more about my journey follow me at:

Twitter: @fikra_dev

Github: https://github.com/FikraDev

Comments

[Land Gohome]

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[Tôi Nhớ_Ai]

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[hiztm]

Wow, i approv that, but i have a question for you, how many time do you have study for to be a fron-end web developer

[Fikra_Dev]

It depends on how fast u grasp the concepts. With that said don't rush and appreciate the journwy

[Black Pearl Matrix]

I simply want to tell you that I definitely liked this article and that I’m bookmarking your blog. You absolutely have wonderful articles. Cheers from blackpearlmatrix.com for sharing with us your blog.

[Fikra_Dev]

thank you very much for the kind words

[Max Ong Zong Bao]

I'm not a military veteran but a conscript in my country that till this day I'm still serving my nation. I remember it is quite a tough transition from military to civilian life when I got out from mandatory service.

Therefore understanding that you had spend almost 20 years in service. I really applaud that you had started on this path. My suggestion is to keep focus on being consistent in your learning.

Do note that what you're studying in University is just the fundamental. Like how a enlistee is going through bootcamp to be instill the fundamentals of being a soldier for their country.

In the real world this is totally different, once you had graduated from your university. You can pursue and train yourself in different specialisation to fulfil in different roles in the organisation. I believe your in the right place. I wish you all the best and good luck in your journey.

[Jon Strayer]

I also went into software development after military service (in my case 11 years in the Navy). I've been a paid developer for many years now. It's clearly doable.

[Frank Szendzielarz]

Well done! As someone with decades of experience in development, I'd say that if you have it in you to be a programmer then the number one skill is perseverance. Perseverance takes different forms: knowing when to shelve something, knowing when to delay solving a problem, knowing when to not give up and keep hacking away at it until it's solved. Stick at it! You'll just keep getting better and better.

[Mark Koenig]

I served in the US Army I now work as a junior software engineering support specialist