I'm new here...

This is my first post. I just wanted to say hello to all and introduce myself. My nickname is Omi. I'm a mother of three kids, the two youngest of whom are grade-schoolers (10 & 13) with Autism. I'm back in school to finish my BS degree in Computer Science after spending the last decade a stay-at-home mother, musician, and self-taught freelance eCommerce and website developer.

I want to pursue my Masters as well, life willing, now that my kids are older and more independent. I consider myself a beginner despite having over a decade of experience making websites because I never went beyond the tools I used freelancing— primarily, HTML, CSS, Javascript, PHP and MySQL. Most of my coding was for sales funnels (and optimization), Shopify Development, and Woocommerce. Although I also became (by nature of the game) a "jack of all trades" eCommerce sales and technology consultant.

Alas, this is not what I WANT to do. It's what I COULD do (at the time) and HAD to do (all the time) to put food on the table. My relationships, schedule, family demands, and finances have kept me deadlocked for two decades. And as a minority middle aged female, without a degree or much experience, at the peak of COVID amidst inflation hell with handicapped children- I had a decision to make: Go back to school... or go on welfare.

I found the Dev dot To site while browsing through tutorial websites. I have a new LinkedIn but no connections. Enrolled officially in my program, I now have access to LinkedIn learning, and free vouchers from Microsoft which I'm pursuing on the side. I've yet to decide my career focus but I'm leaning toward Data Science since I genuinely loved problem solving with eCommerce clients using sales and customer data.

My interests are still very broad however. I enjoy amateur game dev, AI, ML, VR (shiny object syndrome), blockchain and generative art. My family and friends consider me a geek, but I'm just nowhere and completely blown away by the talents so many of you hold— it's inspiring and amazing. I only wish I could be half as good as some of you someday.

I've started reaching out online to be part of tech communities because my school is mostly online and my lifestyle doesn't offer me many opportunities to mix and meet anyone offline. Because of remote school, I don't even get to off-topic chit chat or socialize with my peers in class.

Anyhow, that's "About Me" enough. I hope to follow a few people I can learn from here.