Continuous Learning — An Integral Part of A Programmer’s Development

“The beautiful thing about learning is nobody can take it away from you. ” - B. B. King

The quote above has been my favorite since I was a kid. It is my quote of inspiration for continuous learning.

Learning and mastery takes time, patience and consistent practice. When you have focused devotion to learning, you reap the harvest of wisdom and deepened knowledge that nobody else can take away from you. It doesn’t mean that you can be greedy and keep that knowledge to yourself. You have the power, ability and opportunity to share your knowledge to help others and make a difference.

I think that is what our lives is about — to connect and collaborate with the right people that comes our way in our unique journey in life.

We all went to school to learn. We go through many years of school in our lives because it is fundamental and essential. We study hard to get good grades and merits. We compete to excel and get awards. We want to be best in what we do and what we want to do.

When we finished school, we thought we finished learning what we had to learn. However, that is not the reality. The reality is — it is just the beginning of the true learning — in life.

When we begin our career at any profession we choose, that’s what when really start to apply what we learned. To be agile in every unique situation we encounter. To learn from our mistakes and wrong decisions. To solve the problems we encounter. To deal with difficult people we meet. To keep the ones that we value the most and let go of those that hinder us in our walk in life. I personally can relate to through my own journey.

So, a bit about me and my story. Professionally, l currently work as a Fullstack Software Developer a.k.a programmer or Software Engineer. As for education, I studied BSc. Computer Science in college with major in programming. My first programming language was Visual Basic on tube computers with Windows 98 Operating System in it. I only had tiny external memory floppy disks to save my files. I had learn computer typing at a good speed, Logic gates and converting binary codes. I’ve had several types of jobs and career roles after college. My first job in 2006 was technical support in different levels American companies. I also worked as an International travel consultant, SEO Specialist, web developer, programming coach, and now as an IT Consultant with Software Engineer and cloud computing focus.

To follow my passion and dream in working with computers and tech, I studied more programming (Agile System Development in C# and Java Development) before I started working full-time as a programmer.

I studied programming but I am continually learning myself by investing time to learn during the week. I study continually to level up with the fast-paced technologies these days and also to follow my passion in my field of career.

If you are not updated with new tech and programming languages in this era, there is a big risk of being “left-behind” in the tech race. This means being an experienced or new programmer doesn’t matter if you cannot work with new technologies and build your skilled continuously. Most of all, understanding the problem that you have to fix or create with your tech skills. Of course, collaboration is also a key.

Unless you really want to work maintaining old systems the rest of your career, then maybe you can get by missing a good chance of creating something great with new technologies — like cloud computing in Microsoft Azure and other cloud computing platforms, advancement of AI, Big Data, Machine Learning, serverless, containers and more.

So, continuous learning is important to me as a programmer. A software developer/engineer who wants to develop not just systems — but also herself.

PS. This is my first medium article and I hope it is a good start of writing more inspirational Tech stuff! 😊 Thanks for reading!

About Author: Jonah Andersson is a Filipina-Swedish Software Developer who codes full stack system development in C# .NET/NET Core. Jonah is passionate about continuous learning, developing and sharing knowledge about Microsoft Azure cloud technologies. She is a Microsoft MVP and one of the #AzureHeroes in Sweden. A woman who codes in tech who likes writing, advocating gender equality in the tech industry through mentorship and by being role model on her spare time. Follow her on Twitter @cjkodare, LinkedIn and her website at https://jonahandersson.tech