WHY I STARTED CODING
My interest in technology started when I was younger. I’ve always been curious with how these seemingly simple but powerful digital tools helped make my life better. Like how Skype helped me and my siblings stay connected with my mom when we did not see her for 16 years. World of Warcraft kept me entertained as a kid in the summers when we didn’t have any money to travel for vacation, or how obsessed I am as an adult discovering how powerful excel sheets can be. It’s pretty fascinating how these technologies make our everyday lives a little better and I wanted to be a part of it. I wanted to understand how it works and how I can be a part of building these solutions that can then help improve the quality of life for others like how it did mine.
CURIOSITY AND CAREER
Having had diverse roles in my career I always kept a close eye on technology. From being in client facing roles where I developed empathy which helped me manage them better. In operations, ensuring everything is running smoothly across multiple channels of the business. In marketing where I made sure the website communicates the right message, built landing pages in ClickFunnels and created content for social media. Even in having started a business from scratch where I was able to bring together all the skill sets I acquired above which gave me a unique perspective of the bigger picture, outside of the role I had. Technology has always helped me perform better, build systems for the responsibilities I had and enabled me to find resources I would probably never have found without it. It’s everywhere, and it’s in everything we do.
LEARNING TO CODE
When I finally had the opportunity to pursue technology through coding, I went through various sources available online which, I’d be honest, can be pretty overwhelming. I did not know where to start! Did you know that there are 19 types of developers? And I used to think that the same IT guy who fixed my computer, can also build an app. It just goes to show how much I had to learn about the industry. With persistent research and getting some advice from experienced people in the field, I found Codecademy. The web development path they offered made the most sense to start with because it gave me an overview of what I needed to understand about what I’m getting myself into, plus the codealongs were a lot of fun too.
(Check out my experience in learning with Codecademy)
REALITY OF CODING
After having completed the course (which felt amazing!) I then began the process of actually becoming a web developer, standing on my own two feet. It can be scary but also exciting because now I can communicate to developers better and not to mention I can actually build things on my own! It’s not to say it was all easy, I remember the struggles and time it took for me to solve a problem back then which only takes a few seconds to implement now. It really is the nature of the job – finding the right problem, finding the best solution for it and then adding that solution to your toolbox for the future.
The more I learn about it the more curious I get. It’s good that I had already developed a system to manage my time between work, life and rest before I started coding, otherwise I’d be doing this 24/7!
With how fast the world is changing right now, especially the challenges we’re all facing in 2020, it goes to show how important learning about technology is. I’m so happy to have started this journey, I love the process (both the good and the not so fun parts) and I’m very excited to see where this leads me.
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If you’re new to coding or would like to brainstorm about a project. Let’s have a conversation, feel free to reach out at alessandra.milburn@yahoo.com let’s collaborate!