Flying into Coding
As I look back on my experience with coding, I’m left nostalgic about the past. My careers before and my abilities now coincide and make up my knowledge now. Since working as a Customer Service Manager at Best Buy and working to solve complex problems to please customers and reach a satisfactory business result as well as a satisfactory customer outcome, I fell in love with solving problems and wanted to find a way to incorporate that into my lifelong career.
A few years into my career I needed a new challenge and took to the skies to find my dream. I became a Flight Attendant for American Airlines and travelled the world. I saw places I never thought I’d see, met extraordinary people and gained powerful knowledge and insight that I still carry with me today to guide myself through difficult decisions. I’d use my problem solving abilities that I gained from my previous job to help here at my new job where I worked again to satisfy customers and safely get them from one place to another all the while keeping a smile on my face. It brought me immense joy to serve people and connect them with the world.
Once the pandemic hit, I was temporarily let go from my job for almost a year.. (I’m back to flying currently) but I was determined to find something to fill my time and find my passion in life. I took time to test out things I thought I might be interested in like Philosophy and Psychology but I felt myself missing something key in there, I missed my time working on and solving problems (Not that there are not problems to be solved in those subjects). I also write poetry as a hobby and wanted to design a website to showcase my talent as a poet and began work on a website with Squarespace to give myself my outlet for my work instead of sites like Instagram.
After trying to work with Squarespace I found that it was not giving me enough creative freedom to work with my own thoughts and designs and looked into a way that I could do this without a restrictive website like Squarespace and discovered Software Development. I began working tirelessly on coding, trying to fill my head with as much knowledge of how to build websites with my own skill. I quickly discovered that this was a journey I couldn’t take on my own. I discovered Flatiron School, where I was given the ability to learn how to do something to me that still seemed like magic and before I knew it, 12 weeks had gone by and I was tasked with building my own website, the moment I had been waiting for.
I built a website of my own and it sparked a joy in me that I’ve never felt before, I honestly felt like I had breathed life into something for the first time in my life. It was one of my proudest moments and I am thankful for it everyday. I am continuing to work on new projects and create things that not only bring joy to me but can bring joy to others as well. I’m glad I flew into code and I can’t wait to soar to greater heights day after day.
