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How did you realize you wanted to learn to code?

CodeNewbie Staff on June 16, 2022

Hey CodeLand! Throughout your experience at this year's event, we hope you get a chance to explore CodeNewbie Community on your own a bit and eng...
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Alexander Bourlotos

This question hurts a little because I always thought that programming required calculus-level math. I was told by people who knew less that I wasn't learning what was required and it really put me off (this was back in HS/2004-6). Learning that it's not true re-ignited my interest.

I always liked messing with web code, but I didn't see it as programming. I wish I had a better mentor in my early days but now that I know more, I can't wait to get started!

I also want to learn how to code so that I can de-mystify it for others and be a mentor for others in the future as well.

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Maria Silva

Hi Alexander!

I'm glad you were able to re-ignite your interest in programming. I had been thinking about learning to code for about two years but I also had the misconception that you needed to be proficient in higher level math. Math was never my favorite subject. It wasn't until I started looking into bootcamps and reading reviews from people that transitioned from careers like retail to software developers that I was like "hey, maybe I can do it too." And now I'm doing it!

It's awesome that you want to give back and de-mystify it for others, can't wait to see what you do!

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itsNatalye

My child inspired me to jump into it! She has been learning front end development and I was literally watching and learning everyday! For a couple of years I have learned some coding and taught elementary and middle school students from the Hello World Little Bits Coding kits to Girls Who Code groups.

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Ben Halpern

I had a fascination in computers long before I even knew coding was a thing people could do.

I'm 33 years old, and I really think coding wasn't on the radar of anyone in my life as something to even bother telling me was a thing. But every time I stumbled across some knowledge of how computers did what they did and what could be done, I really loved it!

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π•π•¦π•π•šπ•’ πŸ‘©πŸ»β€πŸ’»

When I was studying Japanese I had to do an internship, which I did at the Japanese department of University of Vienna by hosting the website. Together with a colleague we had to create a WordPress site for the "150 years Japanese and Austrian relation" celebration where a professor needed a platform for her lecture. The designing, the meetings, the talks about how we could best achieve her goals - it was so fascinating that I was sure that after graduating I want to learn how to code.

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Kithmini

Since my childhood I used to do so many things using my brothers computer. I learnt lot from him.I really loved to see his coding stuffs. After completing my Advanced level exams, I wanted to become a software engineer.So this is how that I realized Iwanted to learn to code.πŸ™ƒπŸ™Šβ€‹

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Matt Eves

I always thought coding was impossible and something I couldn't possibly do. Then, whilst having a chat with someone in the office about someone I knew who had switched careers but how I didn't think I could learn to code, they said "well I reckon you could do that". So I read up on it and had a a go at starting to learn, and really enjoyed it. Funny in hindsight how much that little voice can be a barrier to trying something new. I'm a "late mid-30's" (πŸ˜…) learner so I do sometimes feel like an outlier, and learning with a young family has been slow and steady, but I learnt early on not to compare my rate of progress to others which was a good lesson to learn.

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connyx

Trust me, you are not the only one "late mid-30's" who found out that coding is something they wanna do. And I'm not only talking about myself. Haha ;-)

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Sarah Dye

In August 2015, I saw a job posting for Skillcrush. I got curious so I checked out their website and signed up for their newsletter. At the time, the newsletter sent daily e-mails when you first signed up with activities and information about tech.

Day 3 was when I wrote my first line of code. It wasn't very fancy, but that line of code is where I realized tech is the right fit for me. Shortly after that I signed up for their free coding bootcamp and did research. That's what helped me decide to learn how to code and shortly after that I enrolled in Skillcrush's web designer blueprint cohort.

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Sheldon Stevens

I grew up being surrounded by technology and I have always been curious more about how the apps, websites, games and such worked more so then my interest in using the actual technologies. I always thought programmers were super smart, creative, almost godlike people and that if you knew how to code you must be a super genius or have years of tech experience and I was delighted to learn that was not necessarily correct haha. Once I started breaking down code and realizing what this string says vs what I'm seeing on this website and how they connect ect. I was hooked and when I ran my first block of code and it was successful I fell in love and decided it was something I couldn't imagine living without.

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mariessad

I used to make websites as a teen, but because there weren't any coding/computer classes at my school, I ended up pursuing art. Now as an adult who graduated from art school, I still want to make websites, and there's so much information online that I can self-teach! Learning how the internet works and how to make dynamic websites is so interesting and complex

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Utkarsh Maurya

I was always fascinated by technology since I was a child. I loved to learn about how computers and smartphones worked. Researching about these topics introduced me to the concept of coding. That's when I knew, this is what I want to do in my life.

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Ayu Adiati

I wanted to have a website to write a personal blog and showcase my photography hobby photos.

So I browsed everything about WordPress. Then I stumbled on freeCodeCamp, tried it out, saw "Hello World" rendered with HTML for the first time, and never look back ☺.

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Hattie

My sister, about 6 years ago, was getting a business degree from a local college, and was required to take a programmming (specifically python) class for it. She was really struggling and couldn't understand any of it and was worried she'd fail. So she asked me to take a look at it and I took over learning from the book and then teaching her how it all worked so she could do assignments and tests. And while she hated every second of it, I was hooked.

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Argem Flores • Edited

I'm always curious on how things work, and it started when I was a kid. That continued to my high school years where I was introduced to computers. We programmed small scripts and games, which made me so happy that I pursued Computer Science in college. 😊

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Franklin Ohaegbulam

While growing up, I was enthusiastic about STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics). During my High school days, I got interested in website design, did little of PHP using wapka.mobi and FTP. Unfortunately, I couldn't keep up and quitted. 7 years later, after trying out so many other things including graphic design, I wasn't feeling fulfilled. I needed to make something which I or people can use like an application or website. That was how I got into web development during Covid-19 period. And I realized this is what I should be doing and I'm happy taking this career path.

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Jolene Kearse

I had been teaching English in China and let my visa expire, so I actually got deported! I went from a city of 20 million with awesome public transportation, to being physically isolated in a Canadian town. I looked into teaching online, but the salary wasn't anywhere I was used to.
I had started a business in China and used web-site builder and loved that, so I looked into learning the actual code online. I just got so stuck into it; puzzling out the specifics and still being able to use my creativity!

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Zakita

Hello everybody! How are you? I think you will be great at getting a visa here and you will just go on a good trip, a study trip and so on easiest residence countries immigrantinvest.com/blog/easy-resi... . I think there are really a lot of comedians. Here you will be given an algorithm for obtaining a visa, explain the details and all the risks.

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Sheena

I currently work with adults with developmental disabilities. Many of them expressed an interest in dating apps/websites. This sparked my curiosity. I googled free resources and did online exercises before applying for a bootcamp.

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Christopher Aaron

It was two friends, one of them being a web developer, who were actually surprised and confused that I wasn't a developer. Surprisingly, they always thought its what I did as a career and stated that I just "looked like I do."

I've always had a fascination with computers and how it worked, always chose a job where I can be creative, and aspired to work from home. It wasn't until the Pandemic that I came across #100Devs. Leon, his community, and the program being free made me come to decision of learning. I had nothing to lose. It was the best decision of my life!

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Valeria Cerpa Salas

I wanted my designs to become reality, I spent a lot of time in hackathons making power points of web and app projects that I wanted to see them materialize. Likewise, I watched the projects that my brother was doing during his studies in Computer Science. All this made me start researching about technology, programming and empowerment opportunities for women in this area.

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Teniola Olowookere

I had an unplanned gap year due to strike actions but I couldn't stay idle.

I tried out so many things but I gave it up too quickly, until I came across Angela Yu's course on Frontend web development. I won't have it any other way. Code makes me so happy.

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Stephanie Poon

I am a participant in the Victorian Government Digital Jobs Program, which is encouraging mid-career professionals to receive sponsored training in digital skills. These digital skills are then applied in a paid internship with a business that requires those skills.

I chose the Front-End Web Development course at General Assembly, because I have been on a career change journey for the past two years. I have a qualification in training and assessment and I aspire to become an Instructional Designer. Hence, learning to code made sense to me as a skill that would be useful for creating learning materials in my new path.

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Rachel Sensenig

I grew up in a not very "tech-savvy" household, so when I was younger I didn't even consider coding as a possible path for myself. After working at environmental non-profits for the past 8 years though, I became focused on Development Operations and managing donor databases. I wanted to learn more about the "back-end" of how things worked, so decided to try out coding. I coded for the very first time this past Fall attending a bootcamp info session and was immediately hooked. I've now graduated from CodeSquad with a certifictae in Full Stack Web Development, and am excited about continuing to learn and build my skills!

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JaneM

It was my brother who gave me links to online courses which I watched with his laptop. I gradually started developing interest in coding. The first time I typed Hello World using HTML, while practicing along with the online courses.I was so excited when it showed on the screen. This motivated me to code frequently, although it wasn't easy at first πŸ˜‚

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Amaraee

Well things a hard question cause I absolutely hated anything code related in highschool πŸ˜‚. But my mistake was, I had judged something I had no knowledge of and I regret not learning way earlier. But I tried it one day and I just knew this is what I'd love to spend my time doing. I'm a natural problem solver and I found that coding helped me exercise this very well. I'm glad I decided to give it a try.

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Azubuogu Peace Udoka

It was during the Covid 19 lockdown. I was having a bit of existential crisis. I tried a lot of things until i came across Sololearn. The courses were very easy and fun so I just continued. And that's how my love for coding startedπŸ˜ƒ

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Anthony

Freshman year of college, needing to fill up my schedule so I decided to try computer science 1, since I had always been into tech stuff, and thoroughly enjoyed it. Ended up majoring in CS and also getting a masters in it.

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JudeDevDW

I worked as a full time nanny for years and wanted to be challenged in a different way. I then realized that I enjoyed coding because it felt like a frustrating puzzle πŸ˜†

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Hussain Codes

Ever since I learnt basic HTML and CSS in high school I was hooked!

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Leah Godfrey

At my last workplace I helped an engineer make some scripts to make some tasks that took forever to do manually much much easier. It was like wizardry. I wanted to learn how to do it myself.

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Silvia EspaΓ±a Gil

Working with a dev team...asking them to do things it was like wooooo what they do is magic.

Eventually I wanted to be the one to do magic

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Bobby Trejo

Always had a knack for technology, and after working in IT Support for many years I decided I wanted to make the leap into Software Development.

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Kasope Johnson

Did a python course in uni and absolutely loved the idea of feeding something into the computer and getting a correct response. Was absolutely enthralling 😁

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M.Fahad Imtiaz

I read a post in which it's said that "Software is like a brain which controls the hardware" and it's inspired me to learn code.

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Sea Dub

I was interested for many years but thought it would be dry. Once I discovered it was mainly creativity and problem solving; I was hooked!

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cometsurfer

I realized my mind was more relaxed.
The feeling of accomplishment spurred me forward.
I'm looking forward to learning application development starting Fall '22.

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timDeHof

while I was working as a mechanical engineer, I always went to coding as a side project when i was bored.

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Anya Brun

After I took an intro HTML/CSS class in high school that I really enjoyed and realized I could do it for a living :)

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Anja

I didn't want to do my marketing job anymore because over the years I realized that I'm more of a tech person than a KPI addicted business student robot

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Chrysovalantis Constantinou

I used to hate coding a lot, but I noticed that I didn't really give up on it. So I suspect it might be true love (I'm a physicist!)

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Safety Vest 2789

When I kept banging my head during editing a film short. I thought there has to be a way to make things go faster.

Blender was my initial peek at Python.

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Mikayla L

I've always been curious about coding and finally after graduating with a BSc with a focus on Geographic Information Systems, I want to step more into the nitty gritty of data!

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Jamie

I'm a creative and have been a graphic designer for many years. I want to be able to build the sites I design.

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Mustafa ahmed

i think learning code changed my mindsed,
i feel more comfortable more confident during coding.

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dannymorson

Excited to be part of iconicsgraphics 2024! Looking forward to exploring the CodeNewbie Community and engaging in discussions. Plus, the prize raffle is a great bonus!

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BexπŸ‘©πŸΏβ€πŸ’»πŸ’œ

I have always loved using computers and was curious to learn more. I gained admission to the University to study Information Technology. That is when I discovered coding and decided to learn to code.

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Christine

When an interviewer asked about my knowledge of HTML for an Instructional Designer position that I applied. Unfortunately, I didn’t get the job, so here I am.