Q: Tell us about yourself

My name is Tim. When I was still in high school in the late 90’s/early 2000’s, I took some classes in Cisco networking and computer maintenance, and had some exposure to very basic scripting. For college, however, I put aside my technological pursuits in order to focus on my interest in policy and economics. More than a decade later, and with a range of experience working in different industries, I reached an inflection point and decided to revisit and to embrace my passion for technology as a means of providing solutions to everyday problems.

Q: Why did you decide to learn to code?

I have been thinking about learning to code for quite some time but have never allowed the time or space to fully invest myself and make the commitment that is required to be successful. An unexpected furlough from work resulted in just the amount of time that I needed to reevaluate my goals and priorities -- and became the perfect opportunity to learn to code. I am now driven with a passion and am full-heartedly committed to learning and growing in this exciting field.

Q: How are you liking Altcademy so far?

I really like your program. Altcademy has given me the immersion and structure that I need with the flexibility that I desire. This is my first time learning to code with no real background - other than a technological knack. Because the program is self-paced, I get dive-in to the material as much as I have the bandwidth for. However, when I have something else that comes up and requires attention, I have the ability to put aside my classes as needed.

I also enjoy the support you provide in setting up a local development environment on my computer. This has really helped me kickstart my progress and to understand the macro-level workflow of software development. Now that I know how to set up different things like Git and npm on my local machine, I will be ready to try out different technology stacks in the future.

Altcademy is preparing me to continue my life-long self-propelled education well into the future.

Q: What do you like about coding in general?

What I like about coding is that there is a balance of being logical and being creative.

What I realized is that coding is just a tool, and once you have mastered the tool, then you can apply it without constraints and with creativity.

Learning different modules in coding feels like a rollercoaster ride at times - sometimes I am in a slog up a steep slope and other times I feel I am flowing effortlessly. Having observed the learning pattern, I now believe I have the attention span and resilience needed to dive deep into a subject and make sure that I can get it done.

Beyond going deep, coding has also allowed me to exercise more breadth. Recently, I did a small side project with a Raspberry Pi. I used my Raspberry Pi to set-up a simple React web server on my LAN for my own development.

Q: What are your future plans?

After I finish the full-stack program at Altcademy, I plan to start job hunting. I also intend to take on some side projects to better exercise my depth of understanding in a couple focus areas while also demonstrating my skills.