How I Got Into Web Development
The first time I became interested in computer programming was in middle school. RuneScape was all the craze and I’m not ashamed to say I spend every Friday night playing all night. This was back when my parents had dial-up and you had to choose either phone or internet. I loved playing the game and I loved how much all of my friends loved playing the game. I thought for sure I could make a game similar to RuneScape and then everyone would be playing that game instead.
To start I had a binder with all of my ideas for the game including NPCs, enemies, items, the money system, and skills. I spent a lot of time working on the creative aspect of the game, but never thought to look into how to actually write the code for it. This was pretty much just a rip-off of RuneScape with some not very creative names like Blue Knight and Cheese Knight. I never went very far with this idea but it did start my interest into computers. My dad looked into many different coding schools for me and even suggested I go to Full Sail University for college.
Jump a few years down the line and it’s the first time I actually experience a programming language. I was playing yet another browser game and part of it required you type in HTML. I learned some basic HTML like heading and paragraph tags (nothing fancy, not even <div> or syntax) and at the time thought it was crazy that people actually wrote papers and web pages like that. I learned basic HTML in order to set up my page in the game but didn’t look into any other languages at the time.
Getting More Serious
Let’s jump a few more years down the line. After a few months of working at a full-time inside sales job, I knew that I wouldn’t want to be in that field for a career. One of the things I did like about that job was the technical aspect of working on the cloud and figuring out how the companies systems worked. With that in mind, I looked back into programming and started to learn a new language, JavaScript, with codecademy. I was definitely not a natural programmer. Working through most of the codecademy course on JavaScript was an indicator of that. I then looked more into blogging and started a udemy course on how to make passive income.
I spent time learning about WordPress, SEO, and affiliate programs. After learning more about it, I thought for sure I could do that. Create a successful blog, monetize it, and quit my 9-5 job. I spent about a month working on my first blog, setting it all up, writing the articles, and trying to get affiliate approvals. After about a month, things got crazy at my full-time job; I was putting in long hours so stopped working on the blog. I ended up quitting that job for another sales job and then quickly quit that one as well.
Making the Final Decision
After quitting my last job I decided to take some time to think about what I really wanted to do. I tried multiple things to figure out what I wanted to do. This included taking plenty of career placement tests, meditating, listing out my passions, what I did and didn’t want in a job, and loads of other things. I decided to take some months off and completely change my career path. I decided to pursue a career in computer programming.
Have a similar story? Tell me about it in the comments below! Please follow my social media accounts and sign up for my newsletter to stay up to date on all of my adventures!
0 Comments