First Mentor | Google Engineer Lends Time With the Basics

So, to preface this, I have to mention that I’m a very fortunate person due to no merit of my own. I have some really awesome friends, family members, and coworkers who sacrifice a lot of time and energy for me. One of this is a friend of mine who’s a software engineer at Google in Boulder, CO. When he heard I was interested in learning programming, he graciously volunteered to help out with anything I needed and began giving me resources, classes, and books to study. This week, I called on his and help and he answered.

Today, he came over and helped me with some basics in my code experimentation. The biggest lesson learned: functions. Yeah, I’m not that far in my courses yet to have learned about creating functions, but he gave me the basics and showed me how simple it could make my coding. To be honest, I can’t say I’d be able to jump in and do it myself right now, but knowing what’s possible is a huge leg up in my abilities and confidence. We walked through some different programming scenarios, learned a little bit about the Terminal, and created a mini-game reliant on a number of factors that we created in functions. It was super cool to code alongside someone and see them in action and learn the methodology behind it all—especially with someone who works at Google. So…I’m super grateful he took the time to help out today and can’t wait to meet with him again in the future. An hour with him was worth 2–3 on my own, that’s for sure!

Also, my company has agreed to finance my first programming course. I’m going to be taking Udacity’s Intro to Programming Nanodegree starting on January 15, 2019. I’m super excited! It’s going to be 4 months of 10hrs/week, which will be really hard given my 6-month old, full-time job, part-time job, church obligations, and training for a 100-mile race…but I’m determined to make it happen! Let’s DO THIS!