My former 11 year old self immediately prints to the terminal in my head helping me answer this question. Growing up, if there was a computer around, I wanted to use it, I wanted to mess with it, I wanted to fix it. It could’ve been my curiosity for how things functioned or the amazement in the idea that one machine could do so much to bring me joy. All I know is it got me excited and thinking of a million possibilities for its use. From an early age I knew I loved using computer programs and understanding how they worked. Either for listening to new music, editing family videos and pictures, or using the early stages of the internet to look up information about anything and everything. I wanted to explore it all. Eventually, my love for it lead to studying computer science in college.
I soon went from using programs to actually understanding how to build them. I started to gain a deeper knowledge about code and the tremendous discipline behind it. I learned how powerful knowing a computer language could be to begin taking great ideas from your imagination to a computer screen and beyond. It took dedication in learning a new world of syntax and technologies that worked behind the scenes. Coding became a constant game of trial and error and got me used to the idea that things don’t always work like you intend and that the process to make them work becomes more rewarding than the output sometimes. I started to feel like an artist sculpting for the joy of sculpting knowing his/her art might not appeal to everyone. In my case, the hours of coding would easily lead to bugs and bugs that could lead to an unusable program.
Through my years in college I became especially interested computer architecture. I remember feeling like a kid at chocolate factory in that class as I could finally understand how something displayed on a computer screen could be reduced to something as simple as zeros and ones. Soon I discovered that making software from scratch was just as complex as making a program work in an operating system. I realized it took teams of people to make a good piece of software. For the longest time I thought coding was about one person alone with his/her art, but soon it made sense how crucial a collaboration is for developing the best possible final product. It also made me happy to learn that I could step out of my shell and become part of something greater than myself.
The sad part came when my passion for music clashed with my love for coding during college. Missing out on internships and opportunities to get real world experience lead me down a path that made me less able to obtain a job in software development out of college.
I knew I wanted to get back to it. Back to the excitement of making something out of nothing, of fixing broken things and figuring out how I could break them again if wanted to just to fix them all over again. My love for writing code turned into the sort of a relationship a wizard has with his wand and a coding bootcamp in software engineering at Flatiron seemed like the perfect way to get back to that place.
Today as I move forward in the course, I can start to remember how powerful and enriching it was and is to learn something new in a subject you’re passionate about. Already I’m getting to learn about the front-end development aspect of web development which I especially enjoy since my exposure to it was very minimal during my time in college. Subsequent entries to this blog will follow my progress as I continue in the course, showing technical examples of the processes I take to complete each phase. Join me as I compile and run a new personal journey of creativity and collaboration, populating my human database with new skills, technologies, languages, disciplines, and resources that will eventually allow me to click and drag myself into the job of my dreams.
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