I quit my job to learn how to code at 44.

So You Want to Learn to Code but You Are Scared- Me Too

I quit my job to learn how to code.

I know how that sounds. It gets crazier.

I turned 44 this year, and I have been dreaming of becoming a coder for the past 3 years.

Coming from a purely artistic academic background with over fifteen years of work experience predominantly in strategic communications, switching lanes was a scary thought, and I sat with it for those three years before a series of divinely orchestrated events made me take the plunge. (Story for another day)

If you have a little bit of crazy in you and believe in making the impossible possible, you are in the right place.

So far, I have been introduced to the world of Hypertext Markup Language (HTML), Cascading Style Sheets (CSS), and JavaScript.

It has been a mishmash of wonder, excitement, delight, anxiety, fear, and sheer fright, because learning something drastically new from all you have known is never easy.

I imagine there are other people like me trying to find something to hold onto in this sea of tech.

As someone who loves to write and believes that carefully and intentionally strung words can create clarity and purpose, I have decided to document my learning experience as a budding front-end software developer.

I am currently running two programs: one with shecodes.io and another with Altschool Africa, and we are learning the amazing interactive language of JavaScript.

If you are a beginner trying to make sense of code, a career changer looking for the motivation to make that switch, or simply someone who finds beauty in learning hard things, this space is for you.

I will be breaking down everything I learn in plain language, the way I wish someone had explained it to me.

Next up, we will be diving into JavaScript, what it is, what it does, and why it is the language that makes the web come alive.

It is a big topic, and we are going to take it one careful, honest piece at a time.

Follow along if that sounds like something you need. The water is cold, but we are all swimming.