You Can’t Be What You Can’t See
Why a stay-at-home mum learned to code at 32
I always tell my daughters that they can be whatever they want to be. My 8 year old loves Roblox, Adopt Me in particular, and she is amazing at building these things called “glitches”. She literally builds these whole worlds and they are seriously impressive. I explained that games were made out of code and if she learned to code then she could build her own games and that could be her job someday. She was amazed! She didn’t even know that a Game Developer was a thing.
After this conversation I realised that I hadn’t been taking my own advice.
I didn’t believe that I could be whatever I wanted to be anymore.
I was too old.
I had two kids.
I didn’t have the time or energy to start a new career.
But I was wrong.
I realised that if I wanted my kids to really believe that they could be whatever they wanted to be then I needed to set that example. I needed to aim high, like, shoot for the moon high. If I wanted my daughter to learn how to code, then I needed to learn how to code.
This was in July 2020.
Covid.
Lockdown.
I needed a serious distraction from everything else that was going on and this was it. I found Codecademy and took the Code Foundations career path which I finished pretty easily. This gave me the confidence to keep going.
I could do this.
I quickly realised that there were SO many things to learn and I didn’t even know where to start. Python? Front-end? Back-end? Full-stack? It was so overwhelming. So I got some advice from my brother-in-law who works for a tech recruitment company. He told me to look up tech jobs and companies near me that look interesting and see what skills they require and go from there. So that’s what I did. I spent a ton of time researching companies and looking at their job postings to build a list of skills that I needed to learn. I found a company called Inviqa who have an office here in Sheffield. They are an amazing design agency so I based my learning plan off of their job posting for a front-end developer. Like I said, shoot for the moon!
I bought a course on Udemy called The 2020 Complete Web Development Bootcamp from The London App Brewery because it covered most of what I wanted to learn. I also bought a Python course because the name sounded cool (and it is!).
Then I came across the 100 Days of Code Challenge. In this challenge you code for at least an hour a day for 100 days and you document your journey on Twitter using #100daysofcode. I had never really used Twitter so I was skeptical but I gave it a go. I couldn’t believe the outpouring of support that I got from this community. Everyday I got retweets, likes, comments and new followers. This really boosted my confidence and kept me going. The Dev community on Twitter has been integral to my coding journey. I really don’t think I would have stuck with it without that support.
I have now finished my 100 Days of Code challenge. I learned how to build responsive websites with HTML/CSS/Bootstrap and Javascript. I know the basics of Python. I push code to Github daily. I can host a webpage with a custom domain. I have a working knowledge of React, jQuery, and node.JS and I can design a website with Figma. I still have a lot to learn but I have found a passion for design and development that will last a lifetime.
And the best part…
The other day I heard my daughter tell her friend,
“My mum does coding.”
You can’t be what you can’t see.
This is so true. Our kids need to see more women in tech. Building games, programming, and developing is not just something that boys do and it’s not just something that young people do.
Tech is for everyone.
You can check out my coding journey on my 100 Days of Code project page.
If you are interested in learning how to code or want to complete a 100 Days of Code challenge please get in touch. I would love to help.
Say hello on Twitter- @kirstengord
Connect with me on LinkedIn
Credit to AviateHer for inspiring me to write this story.
