I'm going to be honest with you. I've been pretty lazy my whole life. I like things easy and secretly hope that things will work it out themselves. But there came a point in my life when I realized that everyone that I aspired to be didn't let the days pass and wait for something to happen. They made things happen. So about a month ago, I did just that. I made something happen. I quit my job! This was my first step into a new world.
It's always scary for me to step out of my comfort zone. I like what I know because I'm good at it. I've been in the pharmaceutical field for quite awhile and worked my way up to Program Director at one of the local private colleges in my area. It was a pretty awesome job. I've never found a job in my field that I've loved so much.
So what changed? Nothing--the funny thing is, nothing changed. I just realized something that I've always had and always wanted. I got to where I was because I am organized, creative and good at solving problems. What I realized is that my position didn't offer what I wanted to do with my skills. Build.
My first computer was a Windows 95. My first basic code was on a floppy disk and I've loved tech since. It was just so fascinating. So many innovations and ideas coming to life. I wanted to do that one day.
Although pharmacy was my parents' obvious choice for me after high school, I struggled so hard with that decision because my mind was always gravitating towards tech and design. Fast forward a decade later, with the support from my family and friends, I gave into my tech craving.
So . . .
Hello Tech World! I'm very excited to say that today's the day that I start my journey with you! I can't wait to learn, build and create things with code. I thought I knew things, but it turns out that I'm outdated and have very little coding experience. I'll be back here every week to share my experiences and document my coding progress. I'd love to hear of yours too. Your journey and advice is what inspires me to keep going and reminds me that I have a friend in all this.
My coding starter pack:
- freecodecamp.org to learn
- DEV.to to share
On my mind:
- How many people are just starting out?
- What did you do to get the wheels turning?
- I'm always looking for good mobile apps to learn on the go. Any great finds?
Until next week!
*** Special shout out to @chrisoncode & @kapehe_ok for being my mentors and guiding me. And to Mikki for always believing in my skills. I won't let you down. ***
Follow me on Twitter @freddilynne :)
Top comments (13)
Welcome to the community! I'm just starting out as well - just finished a course on basic HTML and now onto CSS (on codecademy.com)! I'm a fellow career-changer, from education to tech! Reading, posting, and engaging more here on this platform, attending virtual conferences, and following people who interest me has helped get my wheels turning. :)
Coming from education is definitely helpful! It really opened my mind to the different outlets of learning and how to gather information.
I just completed HTML & CSS and just diving into JavaScript on freeCodeCamp. How do you like codecademy? There are so many different places to learn code and I'm curious to find out how they differ. What made you choose codecademy as your learning platform?
Awesome! I like it, I think I just chose it because I saw it in several articles but I also saw freeCodeCamp a lot too. What do you like about freeCodeCamp?
Hi Ruanna!
There are just so many outlets for learning and freeCodeCamp was recommended by my cousin who has been a part of the DEV community for quite a while. His opinion was highly valued since I didn’t know where to start.
I like that there’s different ways you can get help on challenges. You can get a hint, watch a video tutorial, or even ask the community. It’s great to check understanding on different levels. It’s been great so far.
Best of luck!
My top tip - it's what helped me the most when I was learning my trade - is to learn by looking at and fixing other peoples' code. I got started in programming as a job back in the mid 90s when we couldn't find any software to do exactly what we wanted at work. I'd done a bit of programming before as a child, so volunteered to see what I could do. I found stuff that did almost what we needed, and modified it to do exactly what we needed. In retrospect the changes I made were trivial, but I learned so much by puzzling out what the existing code did and finding where I needed to make changes. And along the way I learned C and perl.
These days there's a lot more projects out there that make their code available, of course, and most welcome contributions from new people. Some will even have tickets that they have marked as being especially suitable for new contributors and people available to help you get started.
Good ways to get started with a project might not involve writing any end-user code. A lot of projects out there need better documentation of internals (ie read what's there and figure out what it does so that people who come along later don't have to figure it all out again) or need better tests (which are code, but not end-user code) to prove that the code performs correctly.
I will definitely look into that. I do learn better by doing and figuring out how something works (or doesn't work). This is awesome advice. Thank you so much David!
I can't believe we have so many things in common! I'm (or were) a pharmacist, and I quitted my job at a drugstore to start studying code too!
I discovered your post because it was shared in this community's Twitter and it encouraged me to also make a profile here. Thanks!
Best of luck for us both! I'll be following your content here because I really like it and as you're a beginner too it'll inspire me too keep going <3
Hi Taíse!
Congrats on your job change! Very different from the medical field, right?! But the challenge has been worth it so far.
It’s so encouraging to hear that I’m inspiring someone. We’ll get through this together!
What are your tools to get started?
Love this part. Welcome to the builder's world!
So courageous decision. Personally, I feel lucky that I'm working in a sector that attracts smart people. Welcome Lynee, and good luck!
Thanks! My brain's excited to learn new things.
Congrats on your first post!
Thanks! I think putting out my first post was the hardest. Now, it's becoming all real.