Why I Started Coding

Background

Like most people in high school, if you asked me, "What did you want to be when you grow up?" I wouldn't have an answer. I was a smart kid who did well in classes, but that didn't mean I had a passion for any of the subjects.

Covid-19 hit in the 10th grade, and although I lost a valuable experience many people cherish, I found my pieces of passion within the time I had staying at home.

During that time, I had an Apple laptop while all my friends had Windows systems, so when they all played video games, I couldn't play with them more than half the time because of cross-compatibility issues.

I made short videos with music, effects, flares, and transitions. I spent my free time creating these videos and joining several communities involved. During 12th grade, I finally got introduced to programming, and similarly to editing, I found out you can create anything, I found so much interest in that. I ended up practicing some basic HTML5 website building and I got hooked.

Computer Science Degree

My grade 12 teacher encouraged me to pursue a field with math because I did really well, so for my major, I decided to study computer science.

To be honest, this field of study is not what I expected, and I would be lying if I said I loved it. Although it can be rewarding, it has been extremely tough on me. Although I'm learning a lot of the fundamental logic behind programming, they don't teach you the creational development until much later on.

Getting Lost

Computer science is a broad major, which is a double-edged sword. You can fit within many areas of tech with a computer science major, but it can lead to confusion, especially with real-world applications. Software engineers don't just code for loops or write leetcode algorithms.

In the middle of my journey, I was lost. I lost my reason for why I wanted to finish this degree. I didn't have many friends in computer science and I just wasn't connected with the community.

Locking In

This all changed last year, going to my first proper hackathon, my eyes finally glistened with interest, seeing what my team members (I randomly had to find) and all the other group projects people submitted, I started to lock in.

I think I'm really into UI/UX design, especially having a more creative background with video editing, yet, having all this logistic knowledge of computer science, my goal is to become a self-sufficient full-stack developer.