Today marks the end to my first module in the Flatiron School curriculum. This point is marked with the completion of my first portfolio project, a CLI gem written with Ruby, and the experience was nothing short of a thrilling rollercoaster. The journey was littered with ups and downs but thankfully mostly ups to my amazement. I was fortunate enough to get a good head start on starting the project which I am so incredibly thankful for and used it to really try to take my time to plan it out and code.
The question of why I decided to learn to code has many avenues within it. To start, up to this point in my life the majority of my jobs were all manual labor jobs with the exception of the live sound production work I did on and off again whilst working a regular full time job. To depart from this path momentarily, I also have played music throughout my life and have always enjoyed the creative aspect of playing music. Now to get back on track, I felt stuck in my job and unsatisfied with what I was doing as a career path (or lack thereof really). I was also going through a divorce and worried about how to navigate that and plan ahead for being able to provide for my soon to be ex-wife and I’s 3 year old daughter. I struggled to figure out a plan of what I could do for work to be able to provide for my daughter and myself while also being able to have a good work life balance to be able to spend and enjoy time together with her, and also honestly feel fulfilled and excited about the job that I was doing. Where could such a unicorn job be found without having to go back to school?