40 and Fresh

As a young girl, we always had a computer in the house (once it became a household item). My father was always tinkering with them and allowing us to explore within them. He would often build complete systems from scratch for friends and relatives and I tried to pay attention as best I could.

Once I got to college, I took courses in Computer Science at every opportunity. I became enthralled with HTML and loved designing websites. I would often find inspiration in a beautiful piece of art online and create a whole template around it. I had several accounts with the earlier, free web hosting sites (shout out to Angelfire and Geocities), and had several blogs to practice with.

Despite my interests, a career in technology was not a vision I ever saw coming true. I would estimate only 3-5% of the Computer Science department at Birmingham-Southern College were females. In addition, the courses took a challenging curve 2-3 classes in. We jumped from PASCAL to C++, which, to me, seemed like a pianist going from "Chopsticks" to "Flight of the Bumblebee" in five lessons. I did not feel confident at the time that I would be successful upon graduating with that as a major. On top of the pressure to graduate on time, I opted out of the program and kept my passion as a hobby.

I do not fault the college for the challenging syllabus; as a liberal school, the fields of study were very generic. However, I often wondered what it would have been like to either go to a different school with more specific specialties, or to even be an undergrad in today’s world now that BSC has broadened their offerings to match the changing times. I do regret, at times, not sticking with the major, but that doesn’t mean I’m too late to address it.

With the changes to society and technology, the opportunities and channels have grown immensely, thanks to organizations like the National Center for Women & Information Technology and accelerated programs like Flatiron School; it’s making me believe I could make Software Engineering my career. I want to be able to use my knowledge and find a job where I can help my colleagues create technological works of art. If I am able to contribute to a project or website in any meaningful way, I believe I would feel a higher level of accomplishment that I have rarely felt at previous jobs.

And so I begin-- a student again after 18 years. I'm not the first to do this, but I proudly join the ranks of those bold and awesome people. And, thanks to my BA in English, I can tell you all about it with proper punctuation and grammar. Excelsior!