From Project Management to Programmer/Developer
Mostly people progress in their lives up the ladder. I am a bit on the other side of the coin but not for worst. Only for better.
A little info about me -mid thirties, asian, tech studies, works in Project Management, currently jobless because of family reasons and frustrated of Covid. Believe that books are ones best friends and knowledge is ones best tool. And as Steve Jobs stole my motto — Time is the most precious resource we have, I am constantly looking at developing myself. Oh and ofcourse I was kidding about Steve Jobs :D
Covid gave me such a lengthy opportunity that I had enough time to do all the procrastinating in the world about me, my life, my work and my future for months. Yes, that is one great skill that I am proud of :D But I finally came down to two things that I need to do like yesterday — my PMP certificate and my CSM certificate. I spent days planning and planning and well just planning both and decided, its Java Programming that I want to learn.
I have always been good in programming, I did my bachelors in Information Technology and did good amount of programming there to know I had it in me but over the years, in quest of climbing up the ladder of the corporate world, somehow I never stuck to my capability of being a programmer/coder/developer. Its been 10 years of jumping one job to another until I reached the level of a Senior Project Manager. Just before the pandemic I quit my job and wanted to take a break but family issues rose and I just didnt go back. Its been more than a year now that I have helped a co worker or made sure my team has been performing their best happily. Nonetheless, I decided to give programming a shot now.
If you ask a techie about which programming language is currently trending, the answer more or less will be Python and for good reasons. Its like the hot trend of vegetable juice in the world of weight loss(yes, I have started vegetable juices and they are yum!) but deep down I am sure everyone will agree that Java is everyone’s favorite — exactly like a balanced diet is for a healthy weight loss(yes, I am trying that too). So, I decided to go for a balanced diet, I am in for the long haul, well, atleast for now.
After so many years, its kind of confusing to start all over again but I can feel the same excitement. To be able to create something tangible that i can look at and marvel at my own capabilities is highly reassuring. This is what attracts me to software development — to be able to create something that can help someone or the other in some or the other way. That someone can be me to start with :)
For all the non-techie people wanting to get into softwares, its difficult to even comprehend of the vast galaxy of softwares. Its more difficult to keep a track of how to learn what. Rarely does an online tutorial or a website give you a picture as a whole. Tutorials are plain tutorials and each one starting with “Hello World” or was it just from a decade old, I dont know but I am about to find out. :) I am a regular on Twitter and have joined the development community to gather information to make my life and journey easier. I constantly read posts and follow techies and profiles like #100daysofcode with hope that something will land in my plate which will be helpful to me and most of the times it is. One good tip that I have always followed is to journal the information I gather and that is what I am going to do here.
But it all starts with knowing what you want to do and how to gather information regarding the same.
I am passionate of smartphones and mobile apps(have managed so many projects on those) and I know that data collected over a period of time has this immense potential of forecasting problems that can be handled in much better ways in advance.
My journey is going to start with Java, SQL, Python.
Java — I want my basics clear and Java is kind of the basic for all those development languages of the same stream.
SQL — have prior experience in SQL and I want to learn a database language to a higher proficiency.
Python — because I am quite interested in Data Science
This is my near future goal that will then expand into mobile apps. Lets see how my journey unfolds. Wish me luck!
