My Coding Journey
How it all started…
I have a background in computer science, graduated in the late 90s but didn’t do really much with it.
I had taken different roles in retail sales, customer service/relationship, business development, and operations. I got tired of what I was doing and wanted a change so I resigned from my last job in December 2019, went on a trip to Europe to cool off with my girls in January 2020, and start new things like Travels (wanna go round the world 🌎 😊), IT and Writing.
Before I could start, the pandemic happened. Everything kind of went on a standstill. No job, nothing yet started, savings draining fast, bills piling up, panic set in.
How it's going…
Well, if travels are on hold, Tech and Writing aren’t so I started with Tech. I enrolled in online classes on product management (Scrum, Agile methodologies, UI/UX) and got a foundational knowledge of it. I got stuck at a point because I was just taking the classes but not practicing, I needed practical knowledge of what I was learning but couldn’t get it. Well, I probably didn’t try enough.
Writing, I love to write, I love to share my thoughts, beliefs, and learnings, to encourage and be encouraged. But what do I write about? What is my passion? How do I go about it? The thoughts almost made me change my mind but I started despite all. I first created Instagram and Twitter accounts and started documenting my thoughts online. Took the first baby step I knew how to and gradually improved. Now, I am here. Still, a very long way to go and can be frustrating at times but I am determined and ready.
Back to my Tech, I started online coding lessons in Python 🐍 programming. There are a whole lot of sites and platforms to learn from and I took advantage of some like The Self-Taught Programmer by Cory Althoff and Computing in Python I: Fundamentals and Procedural Programming on edx. Learning to code in python has been fun but there have been times I spent hours trying to write an exercise code. It sure can be frustrating at times.
What I learned so far is I haven’t been able to learn from just one site or platform. Learning from different ones is giving me better knowledge (maybe I have not gotten a site that could do justice to that).
I am still on the journey, quite young, but eager to learn even though I am in my late 40s. I also hope I get to practice what I am learning so I know how to relate it to the real world out there.
Starting is always the issue but once you get past that, a step at a time, it becomes easier and clearer. I don’t know where all these will lead me to but I am ready to keep learning, improving, and maybe add more things later as I progress.
Just got accepted to Stanford Code in Place 2021 💃💃💃. It sure will be an interesting place to learn to code. It is the largest and most diverse teaching team ever assembled for a single course: where I am going to be taught by a group that includes everything from professors and CEOs to rockstar freshmen from 65 different countries. My peers are also from diverse and exciting backgrounds, united by the desire to learn this beautiful subject of Computer Science.
I am thankful to Stanford University and the whole team of Code in Place 2021 for giving me this golden opportunity to become a part of this global community of learners.
Can’t wait to meet all the amazingly talented people and learning from them!
Life is a journey, an interesting one. We’ve got to make the most out of it.
