My Journey To Become a Software developer.

I was born in California, and grew up in Texas and South Carolina. I attended College at Anderson University as a music major. I realized early on that this was not the correct direction for me. I love music but knew with this degree I would end up being a music teacher or something like that. Spent a few years trying to figure out what I was meant to do. I got married in 2017 and eventually had two boys.

It was only after my divorce that I had to make some difficult decisions. My brother was a senior software developer at the time and we both grew up with our father having a hand in the tech world. He is in charge of the training simulators on the naval air base in South Carolina. So this path felt easier to get started in. It was my brother that suggested a coding bootcamp. At the time it sounded hard due to the amount of information and the short timeframe given to complete everything, but starting over on a four year degree would have been too long to complete. I weighed my options and a 15 week coding bootcamp ended up being my best option, in terms of cost and time. So I started doing some research on which camp would be the best fit for me. I kept coming across Flatiron. It had a really good rating and lots of positive reviews. Also had a lot of graduates that ended up getting jobs in said field at a lot of great companies. Now my hardest decision was am I going to stay at home with my kids and go to school or move to Denver with my brother where I had some help if needed and all the time in a day to study and work. I decided the best way for me to do my best job would be to make some sacrifices. The time away from my boys has been so hard but I knew I was doing this for them.

While at Flatiron I quickly made friends with people in my cohort. The 15 week program was broken down into five three week sections that covered a lot of material. It was very intense to say the least. I learned a lot very quickly. The hardest part for me was trying to learn all this new information in a short amount of time, as I had no knowledge of computers or software development prior to starting this program. I definitely had imposter syndrome for a while, which I hear is a very common thing.
While at Flatiron we learned JavaScript, React, Ruby on Rails, CSS, HTML, and how to use things like Postman for API’s and VS code. I really enjoyed learning how to communicate with a computer. Also found out that I liked using CSS to make my projects stand out visually. I am currently in the last week of the program making my final project solo. It is bitter sweet as I am excited to get back home to my kids, but I will miss this cohort. Everyone has been so helpful along the way and got blessed with a great instructor.
I am glad I took the plunge and decided to attend this particular program and move to Denver to complete it. Had a lot of long hard days but in the end it was all worth it. I am very proud of the applications I had a hand in making. Even though some of them weren't the most practical, it was a lot of fun making them and learning the material.
My next steps are to start sending out my resume and keeping my Linkedin profile up to date. I hope to land a position as quickly as possible, and to keep learning as much as I can, as I have only begun to scratch the surface of the amount of information out there on software development. I will never forget my time here at Flatiron or the people I met along the way. They say it's all about your connections and who you know, and I think I now know a lot of great people that will do great things.
In conclusion, if anyone reading this is torn between whether to do a program like this or something else. I will strongly recommend Flatiron or a program like this. Everything is on computers or work with computers, so it's a job field with high demand and great compensation. It sure beats waiting tables or hard manual labor. It’s a great feeling to know that I was capable of doing this, and I will always be grateful for the people that helped me on this journey. I promise to make them all proud.