A Coding Odyssey

If you asked me three years ago where I would be, or what I would be doing, my very last guess would be I willingly be in a coding boot camp. I probably would guess I’d be illustrating a ton of children’s books at this point or doing product design.

However, here we are! The year of 2020 was a terrible storm for most of the world. In the slowed state of time that the pandemic induced, I developed a new love for finally digging into computer science — more specifically JavaScript. Anyone that knows me, knows that I’ve always had an affinity for technology. Back when I was barely a teenager, I designed the pinkest, cutest profile themes on MySpace (am I showing my age here?), and the most ‘aesthetic’ looking themes on Tumblr. Learning those at an early age really shaped how I saw and consumed websites. The prettier websites I always wanted to learn the workings of, while the ones that looked like they haven’t been updated since the early 90s, made me wanna run away screaming, thinking that it would take years to load in all the data.

All through high school, I tried to become more honed in my skill with HTML/CSS, trying to challenge myself by learning how to make responsive/interactable features on Tumblr, and even playing with the idea of joining a local Hackathon. This continued into college, where I took 2 computer science courses, where my professors saw that I had the patience and also the diligence to problem solve when things didn’t really turn out right. Eventually, after the state shutdown, and my job giving all the employees a three month leave, I had the time and dedication to really dive head first into making a silly interest as a career.

With the help of the handy site of Codecademy and a limited free coding pre boot camp course at Full Stack Academy, I was ready to start applying to real, actual boot camps for software engineering. Months later, I was accepted into Flatiron School. The pre-work brought a hefty case of imposter syndrome and self doubt, however I’m happy I pushed through it. I’m successfully into phase 2 of my cohort, and I can’t believe how much I learned.

Sometimes, making a huge shift in what you’re doing with your life and exploring a ‘silly’ little hobby/interest you have, really pays off.