Why did I decide to study Software Engineering?

:001 > puts "Hello World!"
Hello World!
=> nil

I recently joined Flatiron School in their Software Engineering program. The first two weeks of the course are called the First Mile. As part of that I was tasked with writing a blog post to answer the question above.

As I think back to where my journey with coding first started, I go back to Christmas of 1984. I was almost 6 years old and my family got a Vic20 as a present.

I remember being excited to have such a cool and wonderful piece of technology available to me. I remember opening the manual and finding instructions on writing small programs in BASIC. I would work slowing typing those instructions into the interface. Often I would have something off in my syntax and have to re-type everything and hope I got it right. If I did I was rewarded with a sound or some colors and it was an exciting feeling for a six year old.

Since then I have been interested in technology in many different ways. I never got much deeper into coding but I was into computers and the internet and everything tech related.

Over the years I tried to get into coding with various levels of success. Coding always seemed to me like magical powers and the people who could use it like wizards. It was mysterious and the wizards had their own language to keep away outsiders. I wanted that power but never really had the time while working and having a wife and kids.

It finally got to the point where I was offered an opportunity by some family to really throw myself into it. I decided it was time.

These past two weeks have been a roller coaster. I felt confident in the first week and felt like I was understanding what was presented. In the second week there were some hard days where I was asking myself "WHY did I decide to study software engineering?"

The breakthroughs and successes have carried me through. I still know there is so much to learn and I know it will be complex and hard at times. I feel like with the support of my family and my online classmates that I can do this.

Thanks for reading.