Hello there! This is my first hello to the programming side of the online world.

After getting my B.A. and M.A. in Arts and Technology, I wondered what to do with my life. I’ve always been a creative person and had engineering-like qualities of wanting to solve problems and solve them efficiently, but narrowing down what exactly to become skilled in is hard.

After a year of freelancing post-college, I became very frustrated one day. I hit a breaking point when designing a Wordpress site for a client, and realized that I was held back by my lack of technical knowledge. I hated that when I used the pre-made themes and templates, I had so much trouble making small tweaks and customized alterations.

When looking at the source code, I realized that if only I knew how all this worked, I would have freedom. It was an "ah-ha" moment. If I knew how to code, I would be free. Free to create what I wanted, free to solve the problems that had been eating away at me when I spent hours staring at the screen.

Over the next few weeks, I had yet another breaking point where I wondered if this meant getting another college degree. I just finished college for crying out loud, I didn’t want to sacrifice yet another 4 or more years just to find a place in life, a career, a meaning. That’s when I came across coding bootcamps, and after hours of discussion with family and friends, and interviewing the bootcamp instructors, I realized that this was exactly what I was looking for. An intense dive into learning skills that would propel me forward, that would build off of what I already know, that would overcome the barrier between my ideas and tangible finished projects. This is what I wanted.

The next few months involved doing prepwork and trying to learn to code on my own (when I wasn’t freelancing and angrily longing for programming skills). I didn’t just like it, I found it addicting. Getting that adrenaline rush when I overcame a logic problem and made something print out correctly on the screen… I knew this was the right path.

Now I’m in the midst of the bootcamp, coding around 10 to 12 hours a day, a complete novice, and only catching glimpses of just how deep the world of programming might be. I’m extremely excited to see where this path in life will take me, and I look forward to sharing my learning process, philosophical thoughts, and projects along the way with you!