Does anyone remember this sound?
My story starts at around the age of 14. My mum didn’t have a computer but when I visited my dad I’d spend all my time on his. He had a huge book on HTML in my room, so I picked it up and started off making local band fan sites - I had a thing for <iframes>. Here are some other web designs trends that I jumped on back then:
- animated cursors
- hit counters
- animated gifs (do you remember the dancing baby?)
- under construction page
- marque/scrolling text
(Seriously! This was tagged "vintage" on giphy. How old does that make me feel?!)
When you don't know what you want to be
At school, I never knew what I wanted to do and for some reason, I'd never considered programming as a job. At A-Level I did ICT but flunked out as I don't care for Excel. It made me think that this computer stuff wasn't for me. I went to uni to study English Language and ended up in digital marketing for more years than I care to disclose.
For the past two decades, I've always had a blog of some form. Most recently this was an eco parenting blog (and YouTube channel). I used to create my own template designs in HTML and CSS and then ask my husband, reluctantly, to turn them into WordPress themes.
Dreaded JavaScript
I tried to learn JavaScript year after year with freecodecamp but it never stuck. I'd have to look up every answer and it wasn't going in. After my second child, I knew it was time to take this seriously, so at the beginning of 2021 I signed up for SheCodes.
SheCodes taught JavaScript and then React building a weather app from scratch. I enjoyed it at the time but I can now see the huge gaps in my knowledge from this course. Most recently I've been learning through Scrimba's Frontend Developer Career Path, which is amazing! It's plugging those gaps and it's interactive and works with my learning style.
Community rocks
The one thing that kept me going with learning JavaScript and React has been tech twitter! I don't know what I'd do without it. Everyone is so kind and helpful. Eager to answer any questions I have and to tell me to sign off when I need to. When I first joined Twitter I felt like I didn't fit in, but soon enough those connections made me feel welcome and it's such a positive place to be.
I don't have a dev job yet, but it'll happen. Looking for part-time flexible work to fit around kids is challenging but I'm sure the perfect opportunity will come around when the time is right.
What's your journey into tech?
Useful links
Let's Connect!
✨ Github