It's Okay To Skip The "Hello World" Part

In the summer of 2019, I was a little over a year into my first job fresh out of university working late at night as an analyst for a call center. I had no idea what career to pursue or what I could accomplish when I came across a few lines of python code that my predecessor had left behind on our shared drive meant to compile some spreadsheet data. Intrigued, I opened up a notepad...

From that point on, every spare minute I had from my usual job was dedicated to re-compiling the same lines over and over, making adjustments as I went. I even remember spending my commutes googling for better code, better libraries, and most importantly better themes for my IDE. Before I knew it, a month had passed and I had turned that itty bit of terminal code into its own application (with a bit of GUI here and there!).

Having little to no knowledge of object-oriented programming, it was a painstaking start to say the least, but one of the most enjoyable work experience I've had. Ultimately that summer was not where it all began for me.

Taking The Leap

By early 2020 I was still working the same job, albeit with a bit more sunlight, and my app's codebase had grown slightly fatter. I was always eager to add small additions or fix some bugs, but the satisfaction wouldn't last that long until I came across an opportunity to enroll into a coding bootcamp in web development in the summer.

I was hesitant at first, thinking that I had already missed my chance to start a career as a software developer back when my options were more open years earlier. I wondered if my short lived experience the summer before was enough to make me believe it could work out.

It took the encouragement of good friends and my own impulse to make the decision to start learning again, but it would be one that I would not regret. I was not the only person in my corner of the world that wanted to have a major career change or learn a new set of skills. Having met the people in my bootcamp truly hardened my belief that it's never really too late to start coding. So we learned, we grew, we laughed, and we were well on our way to something new.

Am I There Yet?

Fast forward 6 months later, having spent the better part of my nights studying and debugging during the pandemic, I emerged as a full-stack web developer, eager to start my first job. I now spend most of my days immersing myself with my coding projects and following blogs made by amazing devs who are still learning and growing.

I still have long road ahead of me, but I remain thankful to my instructors and friends I've met along the way for always reminding me that this journey is still far from over.

For my personal dev roadmap in early 2021, I plan on writing more articles on creating UI components using React!