The Start of my Coding Journey
Two weeks ago, I had my first day of class at Flatiron School with the San Francisco campus. Like most plans this year, things changed due to the COVID-19 pandemic as we had to transition to an online platform in conjunction with the Seattle cohort. Upon our start of class, we were told that we were going to go through a range of emotions for the next 15 weeks. During the tough times, we were told to always mind ourselves behind the WHY of pursing a career in software engineering. With that, I’ve decided that my first blog post would be about this why.
Coming from a traditional Filipino family, I was always told I should become a doctor or a nurse when I grew up. At UC Davis, I graduated with a B.S. in Biochemistry & Molecular Biology as a pre-health professional. After graduating, I put grad school on hold due to financial reasons at home, but eventually found myself working in an industry that focused on helping patients obtain access to medication for their specific diseases. I was in this industry for over 7 years and learned that I loved to help people. As the years went by, my passion for healthcare remained, but something about becoming a doctor or nurse never sat right with me.
While working in this industry, I’ve learned a few things about myself:
1. I’m the type of person that is always looking for growth in a job. Once I get comfortable, I get bored.
2. I like solving complex problems. With the issues our patients had in getting medication, it felt like having different pieces of a puzzle and figuring out how to put them together. I loved the feeling of completing the picture, especially when the journey there was long and difficult.
3. I wanted learn how to build/fix our working platform. It was always interested in how to enhance it, but it had so many flaws that were causing issues with the day-to-day.
Learning these about myself and doing research online, I found myself looking into software engineering. I found that these traits about myself really fit some of the qualities needed to become a great software engineer. I downloaded free apps, such as Grasshopper & SoloLearn, and visited websites, such as StackSkills & FreeCodeCamp, to get my feet wet. As I was teaching myself, I felt my passion growing each day.
I researched on how I could combine my passion for healthcare with my new passion of coding and found that there were different companies that look for software engineers in the healthcare industry. Then I asked myself, “How do I get there?” It was until that moment that I found out about coding bootcamps. Though strenuous (2 weeks in and I could already attest to this), I read about so many success stories on CourseReport.com, on the app, Career Karma, and through various YouTube videos. At this moment, it clicked that this was something I needed to pursue. Six months later, I’m now 2 weeks through a 15 week program at Flatiron School.
These last two weeks have definitely flew by, filled with feelings of accomplishment, success, frustration, and exhaustion (just to name a few). However, the one thing I know is that I am where I’m supposed to be. I’m consistently excited to go to class each day and motivated to tackle the workload that we have. I’ve learned so much in two weeks and I can’t wait to see where at end up at the end of these 15 weeks. This is my journey.
