When the Covid-19 lockdowns happened I, like so many others, was left with only a percentage of my usual income. I had been working as a yoga teacher in Los Angeles and was suddenly left without a studio in which to teach, private clients to instruct, or retreats to lead. After recovering from the blow of losing so much, I started to consider my options. Realizing I had options was in itself extremely liberating. I put together a mental list of what a completely different career path might offer me. Then I began to wonder what path that might be.
I've always been interested in design; both of the built environment as well as our virtual environment. I had had the opportunity to build three different websites (for myself as well as companies I worked for) in the past year using platforms like Squarespace and Weebly and really enjoyed creating those online worlds. I was interested in UX/UI design, but after taking a day-long "bootcamp" course in visual design realized that I wanted to know more about what was going on behind the scenes of design. How did these worlds function? More than just building out what something looks like, or how a user interacts with that something, I was interested in the systems that lay beneath all that.
I had no idea what a career as a software developer looked like, so I did what all resourceful humans who have ever watched "Who Wants to be a Millionaire" do; I phoned a friend. Kristina had completed the Flatiron School Software Engineering program two years ago and was loving her life. She had the most positive things to say about what the program had offered her and how coding had become a great passion of hers. She described her work as building and solving puzzles all day long. "I like puzzles," I thought while speaking with her.
After talking with Kristina, I started to dig a little deeper. What kinds of “jobs” do software engineers do? I listened to the story of a woman who works for The Guardian and designed an application for their website to help prevent their customers from feeling burnt out by depressing news stories. That story really opened my eyes to the idea that software engineers and web developers aren’t only building websites but also have the tools to build systems of great advancement.
I don’t know exactly what I want to do or where I want to work once I graduate from Flatiron School but I know that ultimately I’d love to be able to create systems that help environmental conservation and preservation efforts. I find the cross-section of tech and the environment incredibly fascinating and the development of that cross-section as integral to the protection of our planet.
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