Two months in the “real world”

It has been over 12 weeks since I graduated from a boot camp to learn to code. Three weeks after graduation, I was offered a three-month contract position (otherwise known as an internship) at an internationally recognized company, and the “real world” set in. So, what have I learned (because you are always learning in this industry)?

I’ve learned that TIY taught me A LOT about my new workplace. Simple routines such as stand-ups, how to navigate github, communicating through slack and google hang-outs, and depending upon other developers to get the job done are real.

Looking back, I realize how much knowledge TIY instructors have. They know their stuff. Things that I assumed everyone thought was “easy” (like SASS — who doesn’t like SASS?), others don’t know as much about. You go to one guy for Vagrant questions, another guy for gulp questions, and if you want to know more about right-to-left language translations on web pages, you should seek out this girl and this guy. I ask so many questions on a daily basis, I have stopped being embarrassed about not knowing something because no one knows everything. Yes, I was told this, but I didn’t really understand or believe it until I entered this workforce. Find what you enjoy and get good at it. Find a few more things that you enjoy and pursue them as well.

I realized that I have to write code and that I won’t break the entire site if I mess up. There are so many stages to go through and tests that your code has to pass before it is deployed. If I mess something up, then it will simply get returned to me. And I will learn from it, and it will be easier to fix the second time.

I am proud of the work that I have done. To be able to pull up a website on a device and show people what I have done: “I made that.” What an amazing feeling. To think that what I created could be accessed by someone in a third world country in their own language where wi-fi is spotty at best on a smartphone that is five years old is pretty awesome. It’s empowering and fulfilling.

My first career choice was the stuff of a child’s dream. I was a ballerina (what little girl doesn’t want to be a ballerina??). But this one, well, this career choice has been pretty awesome too.