I've been thinking about it for a while now and finally decided that today is the day--I should blog about my journey into programming!

Never considered majoring in Computer Science in college (after all, art was and still is my passion), but I have always been interested in programming and the tech industry--I'm fascinated by the power of coding and the technology that changes (and in many cases, saves) people's lives, and as a language nerd, I always wanted to learn one or two programming languages.

So I taught myself some python in my senior year and thought it was fun. However, I wasn't sure what I wanted to do with it at that time. Life got busy as I started working as a program coordinator. I learned new skills, got promoted a few times, and became content with a comfortable life and routine, until the pandemic hit. My programs got cancelled and I was getting paid for doing little. I guess I should feel fortunately that I got to keep my job since so many people got laid off during the pandemic, but I felt bored and frustrated--the job was not challenging enough for me and I no longer felt proud of my work. I resigned.

That was a year and a half ago.

Since then, I started drawing on iPad, learned cooking and baking, travelled and went to lots of museums and concerts, relocated and bought a house, fostered cats and made new friends. I also picked up programming--first Python, then, I joined 100Devs -- an agency with a training program where I learned HTML, CSS, Javascript and backend programming and became a full stack web developer, working with clients and contributing to open-source projects.

I don't regret that I had not picked up programming earlier, but I'm excited to finally have realized what I want to do with my programming skills--I could use my training in art and my previous experience working with community members of all backgrounds to build websites and web apps to connect and help people! There is still a lot for me to learn, but I've also had some small achievements that I totally celebrated for--I published my own artist site, helped local small business owners with their landing page and app, created full stack app to log and track foster cats' healthy info. I consider each of these a milestone on my journey into programming, and the more I learn and build, the more I'm certain that this is the career I truly want.

I will be sharing things I learned and found useful here, documenting my journey, and hopefully, someone will also find something helpful.

Cheers! B