Hi, I’m Sarah! Part of Fullstack Academy’s first Web Development Fellowship cohort. So far I’ve stuck with running longer than I’ve stuck with any career, but I have a feeling that’s about to change. After cycling through several potential careers (apparently physical therapy, office management, and graphic design just were not right for me), I’ve finally settled on web development. Strangely enough, my friends in high school saw this career coming much earlier than I did. The editors of my high school yearbook predicted that in 20 years I’d be a web designer, but back then, as much as I loved working with computers, I never entertained the idea of a coding-based career. Here I am, *grumble grumble* years later, starting my journey to become a web developer. Not exactly what my high school yearbook predicted, but as a developer, I may end up working closely with some awesome web designers. Who would have thought that my high school classmates knew me so well?
In fact, my yearbook editors were actually almost right about my career path. A few months ago I was actually considering becoming a web designer. In fact, it was that aspiration that started my journey to Fullstack. I had been doing print-based graphic design for a few years, but at the beginning of 2017 I decided to take the next step and learn some web design. I signed up for a front-end web development class (at a different school), and a large part of that class was interactive design using Javascript and jQuery. I discovered that I loved the javascript-based parts of the class a lot more than I liked the design parts … and so my journey to being a web developer began. My teacher recommended Fullstack Academy, so I applied, and here I am.
Don’t tell anyone, but the Web Development Fellowship wasn’t my first attempt at attending Fullstack Academy. A few weeks before the Web Development Fellowship was formally announced, I had applied to Grace Hopper, a women-only program at Fullstack, but I wasn’t accepted. I was a little disappointed, but I picked myself up, studied harder, taught myself more, and applied (and was admitted) to the Web Development Fellowship. In fact, I was so much better prepared for the Fullstack application that I was given the opportunity to bypass the Bootcamp Prep Vestibule that many of my cohort-mates attended in July. I definitely learned my lesson about always giving 100% and studying hard, and I plan to carry that lesson with me through the rest of the program.
While I’m sure I would have loved Grace Hopper, I’m actually kind of happy that I ended up in the Web Dev Fellowship instead. As a lifelong New Yorker (Queens born and bred), I love the idea of giving back to the city that raised me and helping to grow the incredible tech scene here in NYC. I’m hoping to work at an awesome startup where I’m surrounded by a hardworking team of amazing people who are just as interested in hearing about my runcations (running vacations) as they are in my contributions to making our company a better and more successful place. At a good company, every single person makes a difference, and I’m excited to be one of those difference makers at a great NYC tech company!
Stay tuned for more from my adventures at Fullstack Academy of Code!
