How I Got Into Coding

Throughout my entire life and ever since I was little, I have always been fascinated by computers. My mother always described me as a “button pusher” when I was younger and experienced my captivation with technology firsthand. I have always known that I wanted to go into a technological field and wanted to create things—I just didn’t know what.

I grew up with a childhood friend who thoroughly inspired me and sparked my interest in programming back around eight or nine years ago. We both attempted to learn Java by watching YouTube videos and coding tutorials, yet I had no success. He began to catch onto all the programming concepts, but I had a hard time with them and felt as though I couldn’t move forward with the learning process.

Now we fast forward to early 2019 after I had already committed to Biola University to pursue a B.S. in Computer Science. I felt as if I would benefit myself by learning a programming language ahead of time, so I decided to try learning C++ through online courses. Throughout many months, I completed a very long and thorough course that covered C++ up through the OOP, smart pointers, exception handling, and the C++ STL. However, I decided I was still hungry to learn more, looking for various ways to apply my knowledge.

Finally, in late 2019, I decided to take on the challenge of learning web development by taking courses on HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. I ended up loving every second of it and went on to learn React and other modern technologies as well as user interface prototyping and design. As I described earlier, I’m still driven to keep learning as much as I can. Currently, I have a stack of notebooks filled with endless pages of handwritten notes from taking online courses.

I had a recent conversation with my father about my self-motivation. He continually wonders how I stay motivated enough to sit down in an evening and continue to learn. Realistically, I’m not even sure how I keep up with myself either. Something about the idea of future work keeps my heart and mind fueled with excitement about what I can learn and what I can create. Just in general, I have been this way for as long as I can remember.

Looking back to my days of learning C++, I can’t help but think that I would have been ready to learn a programming language sooner. Of course, I know now that learning Java back many years ago seems unrealistic, as I was only 12 or 13 years old and wasn’t very motivated. But in a way, I wish that I seriously committed myself to learn a programming language longer ago than I did. Since I tend to be a perfectionist, I think in hindsight, “But I could’ve learned more by now if I started programming in 2016!”

The most important takeaway that I feel from writing this post is that we shouldn’t forget as students and professionals to give ourselves credit where it’s due. It can be so incredibly easy to compare ourselves now to where we could’ve been if we had done something differently. I am much happier to know that I had the motivation to pick up an online C++ course rather than waiting until my first university semester, but that isn’t everyone’s case. Some may have started earlier, and some may have waited, and that’s okay. We’re all continuing to grow in our various skills in this ever-changing world, and that’s what is most important.