I started my journey at the end of 2020. As we all know, 2020 was an amazingly hard year. One of loss, one of discovery, one of complete difficulty. When I sat to have a moment to myself I discovered my thought process and the career I had been wanting my whole life was different and changed. Uncharted territory to say the least. My discovery is it was a time for changes to be made and new steps or paths to discover.
January 25th, 2021 I was at home (with COVID) starting my coding journey with over 100 virtual classmates. It was hard as hell and to be honest I probably questioned if I was crazy at least a dozen times. Was I crazy at 40+ to be completely changing career paths?
The answer is HELL yes it is crazy but from crazy ideas come fruitful lives. I kicked bootcamp butt while working the clinic full time. Yes that means 5 13hr shifts a week then coming home to my family who put up with my absence during class time (3 4hr in the evenings). Would I recommend it for everyone? No, probably not. Hindsight being 20/20 I have found bumps along my path that I have revealed to others on the path to maybe help them avoid the same bumps. The mentor / preceptor in me cannot simply walk a path but rather aid others who are running the marathon too.
Here I am 2 years into the journey, school included, and it has been hard. I've gotten rejected or told I was a great fit but need more experience. I've taken time away from coding anything to find my center again and along the way found out that maybe I needed to tend to my own mental health. Afterall, mental health is the foundation to the rest of your life. I have times where I still think I am crazy for doing all of this BUT I always remind myself that Rome wasn't built in a day but rather brick by brick.
Will I be a great female developer on an amazing team or on amazing teams? Sure. Will it happen tomorrow? Probably not, but that is okay. Will I give up on my dream to be a kick ass developer? No, because quitting isn't in my DNA.
Hi my name is Lisa Miner aka midnightmoet and I am a healthcare extraordinaire with a love for code (figuring things out). I hate the box people put in place so I think outside of it and that will be what sets me apart from everyone else. Welcome to my world!
Interested in connecting simply send me a request: LinkedIn
Top comments (1)
Hi Lisa,
Welcome to dev.to
You are not a quitter and that's awesome. I hope to get a lot of content on whatever you are willing to share here