Q: Why did you decide to learn to code?

I actually started to learn to code on my own. I learned Java through reading online resources and a textbook that I bought.

After learning Java on my own, I wanted to join a community and found Altcademy. I did the Coding 101 by Altcademy and appreciated the quick, personalized interactions and communications.

Q: How are you liking the program at Altcademy so far?

It’s a great program and community overall! I’ve learned a lot after I joined the program. Right now, I am doing Altcademy part-time. My mentor, Xiao, is super helpful with answering my questions in a timely manner.

I joined this program at a perfect time because I work at a hotel, and the state of Hawaii recently ordered all hotels to update their website with their COVID-19 preparedness plan. This was the perfect opportunity to show off my newly found HTML, CSS, and JavaScript skills. Until I updated our site, we had no mobile navigation—mobile users only had access to the homepage and couldn’t access anything else. I was able to make a nifty little mobile navbar and made our site mobile responsive for the first time. It’s on WordPress, so I updated the website using my HTML&CSS knowledge learned at Altcademy. I had zero knowledge in HTML&CSS before joining Altcademy. I had no knowledge of the world of programming outside of Object-based languages. Now that I’ve made the site mobile-responsive, I’m slowly working on giving the site a more modern look.

Q: What are your goals?

My end goal is to get into mobile app design. I know that JavaScript and React can be used in mobile development through React Native. I also want the ability to build websites and understand the whole spectrum of web development.

Coding has become a new passion of mine. I used to only think about my studies in Japanese, but now I’m constantly balancing between the two, finding ways that both passions can help each other out. For example, now I can make personalized web apps to store and organize Kanji characters that I’ve learned and can make them shuffle through to help me study for the Japanese-language-proficiency test.