Fifteen years ago, I took an HTML class at the University of Texas Arlington called “Internet Design.” On my first day, I noticed that the class number was one number off from “Internet Communication”, the class I thought I originally signed up for. It was my last semester of senior year and I didn’t want to go through the hassle of changing classes. I thought, “just take the class, how difficult could it be?” I had to bargain with the teacher for extra work by the end of the class, for a “D”, in order to graduate. I barely remembered how to spell “HTML” with an opening AND closing bracket.
Another reason for my college “senioritis” was four months prior, I accepted a yearlong rotating photojournalism internship with a large newspaper company (a company that is now defunct). At the time, all I wanted to be was a photojournalist and “Internet Design” was just an elective requirement I had to fill in order to graduate. However, after doing my dream job for over ten years, at seven newspapers across the U.S., things changed. The business of the newspaper industry was not what it used to be and, like other former journalists/photojournalists, I was let go.
Which brings me to today. I am retraining myself to make github repositories across the street from an old book depository, next to a “grassy knoll” in downtown Dallas. Coding was something I didn’t think I could learn, however, Tech Talent South has helped to prove otherwise. This retraining has not been easy, but what successful training is? I have reached, not only into the depths of my laptop, but also into the abyss of my mind and am ready to go even further.
Before now, Ruby was a red stone from Burma in the same mineral family as a Sapphire and Rails was something a train rolled on. With a lot of help from my instructors, Ham and David, and patience on my part, programming has become a bit more understandable.
It’s funny how things come back around, many years later. I’m happy I now know how to spell “HTML”, that Ruby is a programming language and Rails is a web application framework.
