It all started over holiday break. Like most college kids, I was kicked back on the sofa binge-watching TV. I wanted to try something new, so I decided to give HBO’s Girls a try. It seemed like a good fit for me, I wanted to watch something with a lot of strong female characters, but nothing too serious/dramatic.
I saw a bit of my future self in Lena Dunham’s character, Hannah, with her being a writer like myself and living in NYC (my dream). When things went south for her with her internship and job prospects, I freaked out. Hannah says that all of the interviewers want to know if she has Photoshop skills or can program, and when she answers “no,” they lose interest. She worries about her “special skills” section of her resume. Do I have special skills? I wondered. Sure, I have writing experience and have applied myself in all of my classes, as well as held a few leadership positions, but those all apply to my future career interests. I didn’t have anything outside of that box that I could think of.
Reeling, I decided that I would get some “special skills” if it killed me – but hopefully just set me up with a job one day.
Because I don’t own Photoshop and the prices online scared my wallet, I decided to try programming. One of my friends mentioned that she used the website Codeacademy when she was struggling with one of her programming classes here at UMich, so I decided to check it out. I was psyched to find out that it’s free!
The website was wonderful. For me, as a Creative Writing major who calls her brother when anything goes wrong with the technology she owns, the website was incredibly easy to use. It has you go through a short questionnaire to direct you through what sort of programming would benefit you the most. I was sent to start off with HTML and create my own fictional travel website.
It started off with a Powerpoint-like presentation on the basics of HTML, what every little gibberish-looking code thing means and does (sorry guys, Liberal Arts major over here), then they send you off into an interactive section where you create your own website per its instruction. There are hints if needed and at the end, you submit your code to find out if it works and is correct. And I passed! (Yay!)
It was all so intuitive and now I am proud to say that I understand it now and could create a website on my own, as well as have something for my “special skills” section on my resume! I intend to learn a few other types of programming through Code Academy to continue to enrich myself and also because I ended up finding it fun, which is something I never thought I would say!
I’ve come to realize that tech literacy is an important thing and that it’s very empowering. I would say that I have more confidence in myself and my future now that I know how to program.
Career, here I come!
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Any of you guys interested in learning how to program too? Check out Codeacademy for yourself here: http://www.codecademy.com
Image source: http://tech.co/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/Women-in-Tech.jpeg