As a child, I would spend hours playing with legos. I loved how each piece had its own place. I loved that by following set instructions, I would get the toy pictured on the box. I also loved that you could update the main toy with more legos, making it bigger, more functional and much cooler. A misplaced piece would lead to a complete rebuild, and a missing one was tragic. When my little brother received huge lego kits for his birthday, I would build them. While he was playing with the finished toy, I would have moved on to the next box- the anticipation of building something new streaming from my fingers.
When I hit my amazing but awkward teenage years, the legos were shelved for Seventeen magazines, yearbooks and college applications. Then, instead of building pirate ships and structurally sound red, yellow and blue houses, I built college dorm Ikea furniture and a plan for my life. It led me to a job working in investment banking operations, and starting a family. After the wonderfully consuming, encompassing and hazy newborn and toddler years of my children, I’ve been searching for my next step and set of instructions. Legos have made their way back into my home (seriously, they’re everywhere) and it made me realize and remember how much I loved building.
Coding is so much like lego building. Each line of code is crucial to the functioning of your overall project. A missing semicolon, curly bracket or caret is as tragic as the missing lego piece, but the search for it is just as thrilling. Little steps are big accomplishments, and like the pirate ship, a project can always be updated, re-styled and made much cooler. I love the parameters that guide you while you build coupled with the unbounded ways to solve a problem or add functionality.
As my full-time immersion class comes to an end, I am grateful that Tech Talent South has given me the tools and confidence to take my next steps. I’ve learned to code by myself and more importantly as part of a group where everyone’s backgrounds bring a different perspective and insight on how to best solve a problem. In coding I have found something I am passionate about, where the learning is continual, and for now, my missing piece.
