My Unorthodox Journey Into Tech.

High school

During high school, like most students, I did not know what career I wanted to pursue, and thinking about my future felt like a daunting task. As college applications came around, I still had no idea what I wanted to do but decided to give tech a shot because of the wide range of options in the tech field. I specifically chose to major in computer information systems.

College

Because I chose to major in computer information systems, I figured it might be beneficial to learn how to code or at least get familiar with it, so I went on Youtube and watched an intro to Python tutorial that I really enjoyed. I quickly realized I wanted to learn more ASAP.

My curiosity got the best of me, and I spent the rest of the night researching what software engineers do and how to become one. Looking back, this was a coming-of-age moment, from having no idea what I wanted to pursue to choosing a random major and then figuring out the direction I could take my career. The next day, I opened up Pycharm and typed "print(“Hello, World!”)". I was instantly hooked once I saw the words "Hello, World!" pop up on my console. I wanted to code more however, most of my time as a college freshman was preoccupied with gen-ed classes, homework, exams, and studying, which prevented me from coding as much as I wanted to.

I eventually realized that my current college major did not align with software engineering, specifically web development which was the field that I wanted to pursue. I looked into majoring in computer science instead and listed the pros and cons of switching majors. The pros were, I would have a better understanding of data structures and algorithms and a better chance of landing an internship because I'd have professors and academic clubs to go to for support. However, the cons were most of the courses were theoretical rather than practical, I'd still take courses unrelated to web development, and I had a strong feeling that I would not grow as much as I felt I could if I were to pursue a CS degree.

As a result, I looked into other options and came across self-taught engineers. I did lots of research on career pathways for self-taught or non-traditional software engineers and felt so inspired that I wanted to learn how I could apply my research for decisions in my career. Switching to a CS major was the safer route but I couldn't stop thinking about getting out of my comfort zone and pursuing web development without a CS degree. I decided to take a gap year once my first semester ended and pursue web development for a year to see where things go.

Gap-year

My First college semester ended in January 2022. I planned to start with the basics and learn HTML/CSS. I watched tutorials, coded layouts, and practiced every day. I also learned from other self-taught engineers by watching YouTube videos, reading Reddit forums, and attending remote meetups.

Another part of my plan was to network; however, it felt more intimidating than learning to code. The main advantage of college was being in an environment and having opportunities such as school clubs that makes networking easier for students, which was why I had to work extra hard to figure out how to network myself. Being a 17-year-old introvert and doing almost two years of remote learning, well...it didn't make socializing with older professionals easy. I had no idea how to have coffee chats, have a proper LinkedIn, network on LinkedIn, and create a personal brand. Put simply, I felt way out of my element. I did some research on the topics I just mentioned and eventually got a better grasp on how to network. What helped the most was just getting started and putting myself out there.

Eventually, I became more active on LinkedIn and Twitter and noticed the "100Devs" hashtag. In short, 100Devs is an agency that has a software engineering training program that teaches Full Stack Web Development. I decided to join 100Devs, and it has been life-changing.

100Devs

The 100Devs organization made a significant impact on my life as I got the chance to work with other software engineers to create full-stack web applications. Over the past year, I've grown tremendously not only as a software engineer but as an individual. I've established a strong sense of independence and obtained scalable skills.

If you've made it to the end, thank you for taking the time to learn more about me and my story. I'd love to connect and chat with you!

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/nafisa-huda

Twitter: twitter.com/Nafisahuda12