My Journey to Web Development
Get to know a little about me and how I got into coding.
Hello, I’m Conner
At a young age never would I have thought that my education and potential career would have gone the way it has. Growing up my only interests were really sports and the outdoors. The only thing technology wise that I enjoyed or took an interest in was video games.
Throughout elementary, middle school, and high school I had taken some computer classes and knew how to work one but again, never really found a passion for them or anything technology related really. At the time, I was pretty set on becoming an athletic trainer so I could work in something I did have a passion for, sports. This pretty much continued all the way through until about the end of high school. With social media becoming a big thing at this time, I had seen more and more really cool photos being taken of all sorts of things. In particular though, I was paying the most attention to outdoor/landscape photography and sports photography. This kind of sparked my interest in photography going into my first year of college.
Despite my new interest in photography, I was still pretty keen on becoming an athletic trainer, or so I thought. So that is why I decided to go to Pacific University of Oregon. They had what I originally wanted to study, Exercise Science, and recruited me to play soccer. After a year of taking exercise science classes though, I quickly lost interest and had no real desire to become an athletic trainer anymore.
I still wanted to work in sports somehow, but had no clue what I wanted to do or what I wanted to study. After thinking long and hard, the thought of “Oh maybe I could become a sports photographer. That would be pretty cool.” jumped into my head. I quickly got on my computer and searched to see if Pacific had a photography major. Unfortunately they did not but, they did have a photography minor. My next thought was “Okay. What kind of major should I pair with a photography minor.” I looked at all the media majors and ended up finding one that peaked my interest called Integrated Media. It required taking photography classes so I said screw it, I’m going to sign up for some of these classes and try it out. Not knowing what the hell I was getting into.
My sophomore year comes around and I’m starting these new classes not knowing what to expect since none of them were the photography ones yet. A couple were about basic graphic and communication design, but this other class was something completely different. It was basically an intro to HTML and CSS and I immediately was hooked. A fire for learning about something new had been ignited. I had found a new passion and decided that this was what I wanted to do for a career. I was going to go into Web Development.
Fast forward a couple of years and I have transferred to Utah Valley University where I have spent one year studying Web Design and Development with an emphasis in Web and App Development. Because of how credits transferred, it will take me a little bit longer to graduate, but that won’t stop me or put me down. Since I do not currently have a job in the field, I put everything I have into each and every project and assignment and will continue to do so. I want to be able to have projects that I’m really proud of and can actually use to potentially land me a job in the future.
In order to land a job that I want in the future, I know I’m going to have to work really hard and hone my craft of coding. I’m excited for the journey ahead and am ready to gain as much experience as I can. That way I can hopefully one day still get a job in sports that requires my Web Dev. skills. Whether it is for a sports team, sports company like Nike, or a sports software company like ForeUp in Utah. I’m ready and eager to learn as much as possible for an enjoyable and successful career.
