Blurry lines: My experience as a newbie in coding

It has taken me forever to share my experiences about my coding journey, how I hobbled and stumbled in this completely new yet fascinating world.

If you are reading this for some form of encouragement or motivation in your developing journey, please Abort Mission Now! However, if you are interested in stories, then be my guest.

I have always been fascinated with technology and its evolution, but that is that. Just fascinated not interested in learning, just fascinated. I assumed coding was never for me.

So when I decided to take a sneak peak into the industry, It was out of curiosity and not passion.

I probably entered into this developing thing with the wrong idea. It may have been the force that spiraled my now love for codes but I definitely started this developing all wrong. I had no burning desire, neither passion nor drive for this coding thing. I just wanted to try what I had envisioned for so many years as a male career, a skill not for me but for “them”.

I didn’t know what I signed up for when I joined the Unlocking Women and Technology (UWAT) class with iSpace, a technology hub in Ghana,

For one, reading codes and tags did not come as easy as I thought it would. I was in a new environment, and clueless about computer languages.

I remember telling the project manager with conviction of that I could do it when he asked me if I knew what I signed up for during the interview process.

Nobody advised me, few weeks into learning HTML5 and CSS, I discovered with no help at all that without passion and some sort of drive, one couldn’t do this coding business.

So between passion which I didn’t have and drive, I chose to find myself a drive, some sort of force that will enable me complete what I started. Progressively in this story, you would find the different drivers that propelled me on.

At that point, my mantra had changed from “I can do it” to “ I have to do this to avoid shame”.

What I realized was that, when starting out with coding, a lot of people set unreasonable goals for themselves. The problem with this is that nobody can expect to understand coding overnight.

This was I in the first few weeks, till I decided that if I had to master this, I had to take it easy on myself and give myself time to learn, I took consolation in the saying that “Rome was not built in a day”.

When I rendered my first codes, it was surreal. I couldn’t believe I wrote my first line of codes. I couldn’t believe what I did. The career I only looked on as an admirer, pressing her nose to the glass window staring at all these things she never knew she could have, now a line of codes into achieving this far-fetched reality.

No it wasn’t all roses and flowers.

Not so long into my developing journey, I was fired from my job. Between indulging my boss in an unnecessary luxury and learning, I chose to go to class so I was fired.

If ever I harbored the idea of quitting, my losing a job spurred me on. I told myself that quitting meant a win for my ex-boss, the drive to win, was my motivation at this point.

There were definitely days I banged my laptop (my adorable laptop that has served me well), almost hauled it against the wall out of frustration. Hit my head on the table a couple of times because I couldn’t figure out how the codes worked, but these were days I found twitter and Google extremely useful.

I would post the codes on twitter and the developer community would be quick to assist me. I devoured information on Google like a hungry homeless child, enrolled in code academy, Udemy and many other websites just to read and get better.

There were times I felt I couldn’t continue, my tired was tired. I wanted a long pause of nothingness for a while. I felt crippled under the weight of my own brain, but the coffee at Ispace was the only thing that kept me going to school each morning.

On most days too, I panicked.

I wondered if I was towing the right path, trudging in the right direction. A girl with no knowledge of computer language, no prior knowledge on codes. Here, in this surreal environment,struggling to find her foot in a world completely different from what she is used to.

I often felt like my colleagues were learning faster than I was and I would be left behind and everyone would discover what an airhead I was. But each time the thought of giving up crossed my mind, I woke up, hauled a Trotro and headed straight to school, as if to tell my sub-conscious “to hell with you!, I’m here for the coffee”

Most especially in this journey, I found a community, a community of developers picking me up each time I stumbled. Something I have never experienced in my career.

Beyond my teacher Brian who insists on being addressed as “tutor”, who constantly and consistently encouraged me and guided me was Nicholas, a developer friend who often bullied me into studying. He would hit my head a couple of times anytime I asked a question he considered ”easy”, he would always say to me “ you don’t read. You should read more often and try figuring the problem out before asking for help”. oh and Jake, the founder of iSpace who never ceased to remind me that I was allowed to fail, do anything but quit!

These were people that shaped and propelled me on. I was never afraid to ask for help or admit my shortcomings. They were always there to help me, to pick me up, to teach me and I am eternally grateful to these men, the ispace community and the developer community in extension who played and still play a significant role in my journey as a developer.

I am still in this journey, maybe for life, maybe not, but be sure I am craning my neck and scanning the table looking for space for my wobbly self, hoping no one will notice what an unfit I am.

Why did I write this? Nothing.

If it motivates you, good! If it doesn’t, all the better.

This isn’t a motivational spiel. I wanted to share a story so I did .

What spurred me on?

It was the cup of coffee I will reward myself in school each morning after staying up late to study and work that encouraged me to go to class. Well at some point we all have to find what motivates us, no matter how insignificant. As long as it keeps you going, it is good enough!

If iSpace did not own a percolator, I’m sure I would have been out of the door after the first 3 weeks of coding.