{"id":26977,"date":"2022-04-26T03:39:41","date_gmt":"2022-04-26T01:39:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.wbscodingschool.com\/?p=26977"},"modified":"2022-04-26T03:39:41","modified_gmt":"2022-04-26T01:39:41","slug":"never-even-crossed-my-mind-i-could-learn-to-code","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.wbscodingschool.com\/blog\/never-even-crossed-my-mind-i-could-learn-to-code\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cIt never even crossed my mind that I could learn to code\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\u201cMy unhappiness had nothing to do with my team or with the company that I was working for. It was just me.\u201d Of the many reasons I have heard why people learn to code, \u2018unhappiness\u2019 is as striking as it is simple \u2013 but Martin Fimia doesn\u2019t seem inclined to mince words. \u201cI was bored, I was demotivated. At one point I realised the truth: I would never<\/em> find long-term happiness in my field of work.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Martin\u2019s field of work before becoming a software developer was psychology, and specifically business psychology. Employed as a learning specialist for a tech firm, being surrounded by developers and data scientists may have contributed to his decision to look into programming once he decided he had to make a change.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That, and an old passion of his: \u201cI used to really love video games. I thought creating them might be something that could make me happy. But the first, unavoidable step for that was obvious \u2013 I had to learn how to code.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That statement leads me to a question I often like to ask our students, namely why they did not consider learning to code before joining our bootcamp<\/a>. This seems especially pressing with Martin \u2013 just look at how he describes his first impact with programming:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI was sent a small coding challenge to complete before I could join the bootcamp, and honestly, it was like a moment of illumination. A part of my brain was activated that I had not used in years, and I realised using it gave me such incredible joy. There and then, as I took that preliminary test, I already knew that I was going to be a programmer. That this was my path.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, why not earlier?<\/em> What was it that actually kept him from learning something that he so clearly loves?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Martin\u2019s experience cannot be generalized to everyone, of course. But it probably isn\u2019t unique either, and there may be several who relate to his answer:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI was good at maths and the technical subjects when I was in school,\u201d he tells me on our video call, adjusting his headset as he remembers. \u201cBut I grew up in Malaga, a small, sun-drenched town in southern Spain. Everything around me was very traditional \u2013 my family, my city, my environment. It never even crossed my mind that I could learn to code. Programming was simply not among the real and serious career options of the world. In that place it was perceived rather as something that only nerds and misfit might do.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Copyright Martin Fimia<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI mentioned that I always loved videogames, and as a child I would fantasize about making them. But I simply never met anyone who actually worked with them, not as a child, not as a young man. Not that I ever raised the topic with my parents, but I can guess what they probably would have told me \u2013 that there is no money in making video games, that it is not a real career.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAnd so, by the time university came round, I signed up to study industrial engineering. It was not a decision that came from clarity of mind, and I did not enjoy the studies, which is why I shifted to psychology after a year. Interestingly, doing engineering did allow me to brush sides with the topic of programming early on. But the language we used, C, was not beginner-friendly, and its applications were heavily streamlined. I definitely did not get \u2018the spark\u2019 that I experienced later.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

His personal experience aside, Martin also has broader concerns about the education system he grew up in.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cTo me, this entire system in which you memorise knowledge for an exam and then forget everything immediately afterwards seems totally wrong. In many ways I felt my coding bootcamp was a better learning experience than university. It was about learning by doing<\/em>, which I feel is the direction education should be moving in. It\u2019s also what most tech interviews are really about \u2013 they will ask you to solve problems in practice, not to recite facts like in an academic exam.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Although it took Martin a very long time to get into coding, once he did, it\u2019s fair to say that he came out swinging.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI did all of the preparation work that was required of me as quickly as possible, and then some more on top of that. I joined the bootcamp in September and was due to finish it in the middle of March, but by Christmas I was already looking for jobs. My first offer came in January. It all happened so quickly! But I still finished the bootcamp \u2013 I was doing the part-time program<\/a>, so I was able to do more than one thing at once.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My final question to Martin, now that he has come to the end of such a long parable, is whether he has any regrets.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI wish I had started a little earlier \u2013 even just one year, you know, so I could have used the dead time during the pandemic. But all in all, I am happy. Before I started coding, there was nothing else that really made me feel, hey, this<\/em> is what I really want to do. Now I have found it. And where I go from here, well, that\u2019s going to be interesting to find out. As they say, this is only the beginning.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Only the beginning, indeed \u2013 but one we are proud to have been part of. Congratulations from all of us, Martin, and best of luck in your brand new career as a programmer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Martin Fimia joined the WBS CODING SCHOOL Part-Time Web & App Development bootcamp<\/a> in September 2021, and signed a contract as Junior Developer for clare&me in January of 2022.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Martin Fimia did not discover his vocation until years after he graduated \u2013 then he finally turned things around<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":17,"featured_media":26890,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"content-type":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[43],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-26977","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-reviews"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wbscodingschool.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26977","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wbscodingschool.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wbscodingschool.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wbscodingschool.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/17"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wbscodingschool.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26977"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.wbscodingschool.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26977\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":62570,"href":"https:\/\/www.wbscodingschool.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26977\/revisions\/62570"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wbscodingschool.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26890"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wbscodingschool.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26977"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wbscodingschool.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26977"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wbscodingschool.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26977"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}