My name is Emily. Nine years ago I got my first career job (not my first job, or even my first full-time job, but the first one that was a true career). I started as an English Professor at a community college in the middle of the country. I taught developmental English, Freshman Composition, and Literature courses (Shakespeare, American Lit, and Short Stories). After 6 years in the middle, I moved back to the East Coast and started at a new community college. I added some different classes (Early British Literature), and carried on teaching. But after the transition period, I felt like something needed to be different.
Do I start on a whole different path? Is that what I need? I worked on those questions and thought a lot. I decided it was time to change careers. But to what?
My sister said I could try coding. But I’m not technical or math-y or whatever quality is required. And still, the idea stuck. I started with free online lessons and discovered there was something here. Something that I really liked.
And then it clicked. They are coding languages. I’m good at language, I’ve been working with it for a long time and I have a variety of skills that make languages easy and workable for me. So I continued. I kept learning, and as I kept learning, I found more and more things that I liked. Coding is a language, but it’s direct and straightforward, not subjective. But even though it’s not subjective it is creative. I found that pairing really appealing, and I loved seeing an immediate product of what I wrote.
After learning in my “free” time for almost a year, I decided it was time to go all in. I’m no longer an English Professor, now I’m the student trying to learn all I can.