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I wrote my first line of code in 2017. I understood my first line of code in 2020.

That’s not to say that it’s taken me three years to understand what a call-back function is, but rather that it’s taken me three years to decide to understand what it is. How does that make sense, you ask? Let’s rewind a couple of years so I can better explain.

The first image that appeared when I searched for ‘rewind’ on Unsplash

It was mid-April, 2017. I had just graduated from university with a Bachelor of Science. After undergoing the gruelling process of peer-reviewed research for the previous two years, I was confident that wasn’t the direction I wanted to head in post-graduation. I adored the biological sciences, but felt as though my creative muscles were aching to be exercised. So, after convincing an interviewer that my work ethic and knowledge of consumer psychology was enough to outweigh my complete lack of any marketing education, I accepted a job in the marketing industry! The complexity of the human mind had always fascinated me (and it still does!), so marketing and communications was an exciting field for me at the time. It allowed the imaginative and unconventional traits of my personality to flourish.

One day there was an issue with our website, and long story short, I ended up having to copy and paste a few lines of indiscriminate letters and symbols (<aside> it was javascript! </aside>) from the web into an email for a colleague. I had absolutely no idea what I was doing, or what any of it meant. All I knew was that I was thankful that I didn’t have to understand it! That was my first, and essentially only, exposure to code for many years.

An accurate depiction of what Javascript looked like the first time I saw it.

As I worked my way up the marketing industry to a managerial role, I eventually found myself confronted by an overwhelming feeling of mediocrity. Why? Part of the reason was that I no longer felt challenged in my professional life. But the other part was because, for the better half of a decade, I had been battling with an outdated, societally-driven belief that I could only achieve “professional success” by pursuing a career in law, medicine, engineering, or finance. Unsurprisingly, this feeling ultimately resulted in a misguided career change into corporate and securities law.

By no means do I regret this professional shift; I gained phenomenal experience and many transferable skills (shoutout to the LSAT for teaching me about conditional reasoning which has helped immensely with Javascript!). However, I realized within a year that my legal career would be unfulfilling due to an obvious lack of passion. So, I did what any person does when they need to re-evaluate their career trajectory: I moved to Germany! I spent the next year of my life learning a second language (Javascript now counts as a third language, right?), publishing academic research, and exploring other career opportunities. It was during this period of self-reflection and discovery that I learned about the world of web development!

Web development was extremely enticing to me for a multitude of reasons. It was multi-disciplinary (the perfect intersect between art and science!). It was continuously evolving. It was collaborative. It required brainstorming creative solutions to complex problems. It was diverse, flexible, and relatively ‘future proof’. It was all-encompassing. It was… perfect for me! So, following the completion of some rigorous research, I ignited a passion for ‘web dev’ and outlined a 6-month plan that would aid me in my professional transition.

Let’s get this career change started!

So, now to answer the question I’m sure you’re all wondering. Why did it take me three years to finally decide to learn to code? To that, I answer: haven’t we already established that I live a life ruled by misconceptions? 😉 In all seriousness, I actually was deterred from the world of coding and web development due to three common fallacies:

1. Web development is anti-social.

2. Web development is very math-heavy.

3. If you don’t begin learning to code at a young age, you’ll never catch up to those who did.

I’m not going to dive into why these are inaccurate (feel free to check out this blog post if you’re interested), I’m just highlighting them to help explain why there’s a three-year gap between when I wrote versus when I understood my first line of code.

So here I am, three years later, ready to dedicate my foreseeable future to eating, breathing, and sleeping code. Let the bootcamp begin!