I’ve been around tech my whole life. But for a majority of it, I would classify myself as a consumer, not a techie. In fact, the first time I had unlimited access to the internet was when I went to college. Sure, my family had dial-up for a couple of years when it first came out, and I would go to my local library, but in either instance, my access was limited. I remember visiting my friend’s house and sitting in a chair next to their computer as they would set up their MySpace pages or build a geo-page of who they thought were the best music artists of all time.
However, my first exposure (at least in my mind) to the world of web development did not come until my senior year of college. I had to create an online portfolio for my artwork. I disliked the generic templates that website builders like Wix provided at that time, so I opted to build my website myself. Coming from graphic design, I had access to the Adobe Creative Suite, so I worked in Dreamweaver. Looking back my website was …. awful. It was very bloated, hard to read, and the minor Flash animations (HTML5 wasn't a thing then) I added were glitchy. And don't get me started about all my nested divs and broken floats. But it got the job done and I was quite proud of it. I got a great sense of accomplishment from learning how to build it myself compared to some of my classmates' sites which all looked the same.
Now there is an argument that the site was merely a way to present our artwork. But at that time I felt that the website itself should also reflect our artwork. It was the first spark that I discovered my love of blending my art with technology.
After college, I tried the designer career route, but I realized it was not for me and I missed being able to tweak and fiddle with code. So I took some time to learn languages and technologies that I hadn’t heard of at the time, like React or NodeJS. I fiddled a tiny bit with JavaScript beforehand so I figured, “It can't be that hard.” To this day I distinctly remember some of the ups and downs of the rollercoaster ride of learning new technologies. Getting frustrated debugging, racking my brain all day only to wake up with a Eureka moment and realize I was missing a bracket.
I would actually classify that time period as my first real entry into development. And it’s been a wild journey since then. I have gone through self-taught, to bootcamp, to getting my first job, to being laid off, to freelancing, to part-time. Some of those times were darker than others, but there have been a lot more brighter moments. I have many fond memories from my bootcamp and my first career that I think I will carry for the rest of my life. The euphoria I felt when getting the signed contract from my first freelance client. And now I’m working at a company I never thought I would be able to when I first started this career transition. Sure, it’s still a rollercoaster, and I’m sure there will be many more twists and turns, ups and downs. But I’m thoroughly enjoying this ride, and I am going to continue enjoying it as long as it runs.
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