“Oh wow, so.. you are currently a marketing student, then why… why did you want to learn programming? ”
Unsurprisingly, the question I’ve received the most, no matter offline or online.
And yes, I’m an undergraduate marketing student at the University of Southampton.
But…
Yeah…. why not?
Who owns the right to decide and influence what you want to pursue?
Programming is fun, attractive, addictive yet complicated, challenging and frustrating.
I feel like chucking my laptop every time when there is a damn bug in my code and I could not figure it out.
But I mean, that is the attractive, or fun part of the programming per se, isn’t it?
The more difficult a concept or a technical term is, the more I desire to understand and master it.
That’s why I really appreciate how some developers can explain a complicated theory or functionality by using the simplest example to demonstrate how that works, and how you can approach it.
I like hearing Jeffrey Way saying,
You want to know what dependency injection is ?
Passing arguments to a function, that’s it. Yes, that simple.
Boom! Mind blown !
And then explains that concept through a straightforward, coherent example.
To understand what’s underneath the surface and how it actually work, click me , or Laravel IoC Container: Why we need it and How it works.
So, I mean, boi, that’ s how a great lecturer should be defined.
Never daunt your students by making them feel frightened and worry about their ability to achieve something, as once that fear has been established, when a bug or problem arises, they will give up more easily and quickly as they already perceived that thing to be so difficult to the extent that they will never be able to overcome and solve it eventually.
This reinforces the fact that why mentorship is definitely one of the most efficient and effective approach to learn programming as an experienced mentor is able to break things down and illustrates it step by step that enable you to digest and finally understand the whole concept, but have that being said, there is no one-size-fits-all method for everyone to learn coding as every individual has their own way to acquire new skills.
Fortunately, when I started my coding journey, I have my colleagues who are willing to stay back after work just to teach us code.
Really appreciate that. 👏 (BIG BIG APPLAUSE)
It was roughly a year ago, I was an SEO intern whose job is essentially revolved around content and SEO strategies.
Until one day, my colleague asked me to create a table on a WordPress website by inserting HTML, and she handed me a paper on which the HTML is written.
I completed the table and man,
That Was Fun !
After that I started to learn programming thanks to the consistent and sound guidance provided by my two engineer colleagues.
They taught me and my marketing manager how to think as a programmer when facing and solving problems, how importance git is and of course how to use it as well as the command line interface to improve your productivity and workflow, although the interface literally freaked me out at first due to my unfamiliarity with the tool.
Then this often got me thinking, how difficult it would be without my colleagues’ mentorship to go through those CS knowledge that is considered basic to a CS graduate and how exasperating it is to set up the annoying environment.
I would have given up most probably.
yeah, seriously.
The reasons are simple.
I’m shy when it comes to the fields that I do not specialize in especially something related to technology as the dominant idea is that, it has kind of been a men’s thing.
Hence, I seldom comment or ask questions in communities across platforms, not to mention approaching someone on the internet to ask for help.
However, I decided to step out of my comfort zone by meeting more developers or people who are also learning programming.
I mustered up my courage to go to my first coding meetup in Singapore.
I’ve been to several kinds of meetup but coding. I was so nervous and hesitant that I almost turned around and went home. But I have to say, I’m glad I went.
People there were so nice and welcoming particularly the meetup organizer who handed me a beer and introduced me to other developers.
It was so chilled and until now, I have not experienced that kinda relaxing atmosphere in any of the coding meetup in Taiwan since the workshops or meetup tend to be more “hardcore” here, and I Miss That Feeling.
Nevertheless, two months ago, I have encountered some girls from diverse backgrounds that are keen to learn web development. More specifically, to learn Laravel.
You have no idea how excited I was when my colleague told me that two girls will be joined us to build our application using Laravel.
Asian cultural attitudes as well as media messages serve as crucial dissuading factors that restrain girls from pursuing tech career. Perhaps that’s why I avoided online and physical presence when I was new to programming.
As a result, there are handful of communities for women such as Girls in Tech, Rails Girls, Women TechMakers etc.
So, why does this matter?
It could be tough for girls to pursue a career in development owing to some untrue stereotypes or systematic problems which makes it a real obstacle to overcome before growing into a professional developer.
And that’s how communities come into play.
As developing applications with Laravel is a REAL JOY, We are organizing a female community that provides a platform where you can learn, improve and polish your skillset with other female developers or mentors, you are never alone.
We are here to reduce the distance between girls and coding.
Just come and join us on November 15,
Grab a beer, and join the talk.
Click me to see the meet up event.
You won’t feel shy or hesitant to speak out your questions anymore.
Let’s gather all of our strengths and enhance each other’s confidence by building real-world projects and holding workshops together.
I’m more than thrilled to come across more female devs 🙌
If you happen to one of them, and
as well, leave a comment below, let’s connect now, or I’ll meet you there :).
LUNA 