A little backstory
Published: 2019-12-17 19:53:06

My name is Alice and I am currently attending a coding bootcamp. Let's talk about why and how I got here.

It was 2013 and I just graduated college with a BFA in Painting and Drawing, so my options for immediate stable income were somewhat limited. I gave some things a try in the name of rent money. 


JOBS I HATED AFTER COLLEGE:
- Server at a local burger joint in Denton, Texas
- Studio Assistant for the University's art department.
- Art Gallery Assistant
- Art Warehouse guard/docent for fancy private events
- Leasing Agent


I don't want to sound like a curmudgeon, but I was just seriously unhappy. However, even though I despised going to work every day and fake-smiling quickly got old, I have to appreciate my experiences in the customer service industry because they collectively taught me what I didn't want on a daily basis, which ultimately ignited my search for something more meaningful. I was fortunate enough to be able to switch gears and consider my everyday happiness along with what kind of environment I wanted to be in.

I started thinking less about potential temporary jobs and more about what kind of buildable career I wanted, and what skills I could master. When it came down to it, I was lacking some serious mental stimulation in my previous jobs. I realized that I love:

- being creative and problem-solving despite constraints
- the collaborative aspects of teamwork
- getting in the zone to accomplish a task.
- learning how things work and their processes
- making cool stuff
- bulleted lists


In college, I had a New Media Art class where I coded an interactive installation piece with Max MSP. I thoroughly enjoyed the process and decided to look into trying something similar. I decided to start small, and strategically found an office admin job for a small dev team in Dallas, Tx where I could study coding on the side. Every day, I worked closely with 12 developers, both seasoned and new. They were kind enough and very eager to share some cool stuff with me, and I was able to check out their workflows, observe how they collaborated with each other, hear their standup meetings, help take notes in their sprint planning meetings, and talk to them about their career paths. I absorbed so much advice and gained a lot of insight, and still keep in touch with some of them today! This job also confirmed for me that this is the kind of work I'd like to do one day.


I worked hard to get myself to an employable state and enter the field. Eventually, I did it! I landed my first job as a Web Designer for a real estate software company where I designed mockups for clients' websites using HTML, CSS, and some JavaScript to build custom themes and client customizations. I had more fun with the latter and decided to try to get over the intimidation and focus more on front end web development in my spare time (what spare time?). 


I worked with one other web designer in my office in Texas and the rest of my team was located in California. I am a very social creature by nature and I wanted to meet more people in the industry like me. I searched for meetups in my area and came across Women Who Code (Dallas/Ft Worth). This is when my perspective on working in this industry changed from "I could never do the harder stuff" to "I could do the harder stuff if I wanted to and really tried". These women were true badasses who really encouraged and supported me to continue learning, especially since my job was getting stagnant and redundant. This is where I met a few coding bootcamp grads and learned about their experiences, and I started to consider attending one as well. I thought about how I needed to learn HOW to learn so that I could apply it to my future and be adaptable, instead of just learning the current trending language or framework.


The opportunity to take this bootcamp idea more seriously presented itself when my husband was relocated to Seattle for work in August of 2019. We moved here and I couldn't think of a better time to dive deeper into software development. I am now a student at Flatiron School and although it can be frustrating at times, I am enjoying the process and looking forward to seeing where I land next!