When I was younger, I never thought one day I would learn to code in my 30s.
I’m from a small city in the middle of China. The first time I heard of the computer was in middle school when a few of my classmates were talking about computers and the internet, I could not even think about having one, because a computer was really expensive at that time. But we could go to the net bar and pay like 0.50$ per hour to surf on the internet, we didn’t have many things to do, just listening to some music or watching movies and TV shows, and the boys would play video games.
At my university, some schoolmates from rich families bought computers for study, but most of us would still go to a net-bar, I didn’t think it was necessary to buy a computer, because there are net-bars everywhere.
After graduation, I found a job in which I had to be in front of a computer all day, I was a service representative in the computer manufacturing industry in China, and until then, I kind built much confidence in using a computer, I can quickly remember where to click, how to type fast, etc.
There are a lot of computer training schools in the street, but I never thought of learning to code, you know why? Because I told myself that this job was not for me, I was good at neither mathematics nor logical thinking. I was so bad at mathematics in high school that I didn’t reach the entry level for going to a famous university.
But now I regret every day that I didn’t start to code earlier. I have so much fun learning coding.
The covid in 2020 has changed my life, I think it has changed a lot of people’s life also.
Some friends around me have changed their lives. A friend told me that she has finally divorced her husband. Another friend has decided to have a baby. All these decisions are difficult to make and need a lot of courage.
And I decided to change my job and to learn coding.
Maybe we didn’t realize that life is so short and fragile, COVID has reminded us.
If there is one thing I would regret before I leave this world, that would be not being able to fully challenge my intelligence and my mental strength.
Or if I were a billionaire and I didn't have to find a job to survive, you asked me what I wanted to do to pass the time, I'd say learning coding.
Maybe you are curious about my previous job before learning code, I was a sales associate in the luxury industry.
There are a lot of tourists every day in Paris, you know Paris, it’s so beautiful! And I was quite good at my sales job.
There are challenges everywhere, in the sales job too, you have to face different customers and you never know if you could achieve the sales goal at the end of the month, you have to fight and be strong mentally and physically, and be always smiling, well, if not, at least most of the time 😛.
It was a big challenge for me when I came to Paris ten years ago, I didn’t even speak French.
After having worked for several years in the same industry, these challenges are not so attractive to me anymore.
I don’t want to repeat the same routine. The COVID situation urged me to start all over again.
So I tried Coursera, the famous online MOOC platform, I took the Python course taught by Dr. Charles Russell Severance from the University of Michigan, who has rich experiences in computer science. The way he teaches things is so clear and precise, everything he tells you seems so easy to follow. At the end of each lesson, he would interview some famous guys who are pioneers in the industry, for example, the guy who introduced the Json language, Douglas Crockford, these people look so “normal” and easily approach, which has encouraged me to study.
Then I was attracted by an advertisement from “Coding academy by Epitech” in Paris, the program seems quite challenging, there is a “swimming pool”, (which means either you drown, or you survive) for one month in a shell command, and PHP language, etc., then once you succeed the pool, you would learn languages like SQL, JavaScript, HTML, CSS, and Laravel, in doing new projects, you have to submit the assignments before the midnight every day, otherwise it’s not counted, and you wouldn’t gain the score. If you succeed in every project, you will win a certificate of Bac+2 as a web developer.
I struggled a lot at the beginning, I couldn’t sleep much, and I worked 12 hours a day, with a lot of stress and anxiety.
I cried I thought of giving up, but I went through.
Because I paid so much money, I just couldn’t let it go 😂.
Then gradually I found a way to study, if I had enough time, the problems could be solved eventually. The problem often lies in the deadline, I have to control my emotions be calm in facing challenges, and finish the work as soon as possible.
Coding Academy by Epitech is a branch school of Epitech, which is famous for its intensive training, the students there usually have no time to sleep, they have a new project to finish almost every 3 days. The branch school has inherited the same way of training.
I was suffering but at the same time, I was growing very fast, I didn’t realize that until later, when I was in another online school, Openclassrooms: I had one project to finish in one month, which was much slower and I had to search for some other online courses to do at the same time to keep my learning pace.
There was a transformation in my brain, when I was younger I was lazy in logical thinking, and I refused to handle some “complicated” problems, but now I see things differently and I'm more confident in handling unknown knowledge.
Just like what Steve Jobs said in 1995: “Everybody should learn to program a computer, because it teaches you how to think”.