Why I Decided to Study Software Engineering

I started out in the tech community about 5 years ago.

While I graduated from college with a psychology degree and pursued my education with an MTF (Marriage and Family Therapy, very often a Master’s degree), an unfortunate event occurred in my life where I had to place that on hold. I was stuck with a decent paying job but not what I wanted to do.

A friend of mine worked at home doing web and graphic design. I always thought how great It would be to be able to work from home. What would I do? How can I work from home like him? I thought perhaps of being a personal virtual assistant online for companies but then I was discouraged because I had no Idea where to start.

One day, my friend asked me how my job search was going. I told him I had plenty of interviews but nothing of what I would like to do. He then offered me a job to help him out. I didn’t know anything about design, websites, or anything tech other than operating my apple products, downloading music, emails, and surfing the web. He told me that we will mentor me and to enroll at YouTube University and Google School of Design. So, I decided to learn and allow him to teach me.

Five years later, I am now an experienced web and graphic designer. My friend and I work with many clients who use our web and graphic design services to help their ideas and businesses come alive.

So where does coding come in?

Well, about 2 years ago I started learning html and css. I took a couple courses on Shaw Academy and Udemy but I felt that the curriculum was informative but didn’t help. I am not proficient in HTML or CSS but I understand how it works and have applied my understanding of it with past projects. I looked into several coding camps in the past but never felt like I was “smart enough” or “Tech enough” to master it. So I gave up on learning “the basics” and continued working. The idea of coding arose again because I have had a few clients request certain projects that required certain coding skills that I do not hold in my repertoire and I was unable to deliver. I am able to outsource but I wanted to be the one to be able to tackle that project. So I decided it was time to pursue my career with experience in coding to help further my skills.

I am studying software engineering for the following reasons:

1. I want to advance in the Tech community
I want to be part of tech projects that bring design and innovation together to create applications, software, websites, etc that will be used by many others.

2. Get creative with Coding and Implement it into projects
Having control of a website from the ground up will allow me to be creative with both the front-end and back-end side of a website or application. If a client wants something that may seem impossible, I want to be able to meet that expectation, or at least try with every avenue to make it possible.

3. Continue Learning Opportunities
I will be learning the fundamentals and I will use that platform to further learn or specialize in an area that I see as my “expertise”. I also want to teach others how to code. I want to go to areas where people can benefit from learning to code, like teaching inmates who are currently incarcerated, or teach a class for ex convicts who are trying to integrate back into society.

4. Being able to work remotely
I currently work from home (sometimes coffee shops) already. I would love to continue to do just that with a possibility of also working with huge tech companies while still having the ability to work remotely. Having the ability to work remotely has been a blessing and will continue to be a blessing, especially when I need to be able to be there for my loved ones.

5. Collaborate with Others
I want to be part of a collaborative team. By working on a team, I want to be able to attend meetings and not just listen to what is going on from a design perspective but also from a coding perspective and be able to give input when working with others on projects.

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