Taking the Coding Path
After having worked in the chemical industry for nearly eight years, I finally knew that it was time to reassess my career goals. In those eight years, my life had changed significantly. I’d gone from being a single working woman, to a wife and mother of three. And as time had moved forward, (what with life’s many obstacles), I had lost interest in my career due to the lack of opportunity to grow and apply the knowledge that I had gained while going to college. It also didn’t help that finding and maintaining employment was also a challenge.
I was originally drawn to the field of chemistry because I’d been fascinated by the vast amount of possibilities for experimentation, discovery, and research. However, the jobs that I obtained were mainly sample preparation and analysis. After having my first child, I went back to school and earned my Master’s degree in order to advance in my career. But I found it to be quite a challenge to find a position consistent with my work experience. I found the job market for chemist positions that I desired to be highly competitive, (even with a Master’s degree). What made it even more difficult was that my husband and I were starting our family while I was attempting to make a transition in my career.
As a result, it became harder to maintain motivation and interest in my work. Although my career did not seem to be going the way I had planned, I still maintained professionalism and gave my one-hundred percent on the job. I was able to continue working at my place of employment after having our second child but, after having our third child, I was replaced at work, (since it was a contract position).
At first, I found the situation of unemployment to be quite dismal. But as I reflected on my past employment, I noticed how I had already lost enjoyment in my work a long time ago. It had become more and more difficult to feel good about where I was in my life, (due to the inflexibilities and limitations of my career). Eventually, I came to the realization that I needed to get back on track and find a career that not only fulfilled my intellectual interests, but would also be something that I could enjoy. This particular career would need to be both withstanding and evolving as most certainly, my status as a mom and wife would not remain stagnant.
A couple of years prior to my life changing decision, I previously had begun dabbling in learning to code. I was trying to make a website for personal use. The key features that immediately captured my interest were how even small increments of change in the code that I typed caused the web page layout to change, and the results were automatic. I could control and experiment with my website in any way I pleased. As I began researching about coding, I noticed that there seemed to be a vast amount of ways that coding is applied: from personal projects to nearly an exhaustive amount of career opportunities. I then reverted to researching how to fix certain coding problems I was running into while building my website.
I’d picked up books on the subject matters of HTML and CSS and started trying some of the various techniques. I had also begun learning online about web development through such courses as Team Treehouse, Codecademy, and Free Code Camp. I was using several courses for my learning purposes in the hopes of filling in the gaps of information that I was missing in my self-studies. For instance, I was stumped when it came to adding Java Script into my web pages, and how to determine the layout size of a web page prior to making a website, (without specific tutorial instructions). I just wasn’t getting the full effect on how to build a fully functioning mobile website on my own.
So when the opportunity came for me to make the decision to change my career, the path of becoming a full-stack web developer definitely seemed like the right path for me to pursue. I found that most online programs simply walked through the basics of HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, separately, and then combined them once they explained each in detail. But these programs didn’t go in depth into how to research and solve problems on your own, (or how to become an independent web developer). As a result, this is what led me to The Firehose project.
In the few weeks that I have been in the program, I have learned a great deal. I am beginning to understand the intricacies of how a coding language, like Ruby, is used to communicate with the database to acquire and respond to user input. I’m in the process of learning what it entails to build web apps using Rails, HTML, and CSS. My understanding is also becoming clearer in how everything works together with the in depth lessons on MVC architecture. So, I believe that through hard work and support from my family as well as the Firehose project staff, I will be able to fill in the gaps of knowledge that have been missing on my path to gaining a deeper knowledge in the field of web development. And as such, I am already motivated to continue down a road to a more rewarding, fulfilling future of continuous learning.