MY CODING JOURNEY

This is my first blog post!!! As the blog title suggests, I'm currently a 30-year old 11th grade English teacher in Maryland. I've recently decided to migrate from the education career to a career in IT. Why would an English teacher, who teaches the nuances of shakespearian inspiration, want to move into the passionless(at first glance) field of 1's and 0's? I'm glad you asked. :)

I started my journey by acquiring a BA and MA in English Literature. Plato, Hegel, Kierkegaard, Levinas, Marx, Derrida, Jameson, Habermas and a host of other literary theorists and philosophers captured my attention for many, many years. I eventually graduated, moved to MD, and took a stab at becoming a college professor for about three years (I failed miserably...although adjuncting was a fun if unprofitable endeavor). At the age of 26 I decided I needed to make some real doe-rae-me. (as well as a girlfriend and dodge challenger). I took part in a teacher certification program, and within the year I found myself teaching a classroom full of young minds in Prince George's County MD.

Three years have passed since I first entered the classroom. Not enough time to say I'm a veteran, but long enough to know how the education system works. Why leave? It's quite straight-forward. 1) The salary/salary-potential isn't high enough. 2) Discipline is not taken very seriously. The former case is self-explanatory; I want a family and it's hard to make a living in one of the most expensive housing states in the US. The latter involves many experiences in the last three years that have shown me that education administrators are more interested in passing students than passing educated students. Enough said.

I became interested in coding last summer. I was good at the English language, so how hard could a computer language be? I poured through youtube videos and Team Treehouse archives for about 6 months. Then this last spring I began a cybersecurity and software development degree from UMUC. I've been learning code ever since.

I hope this blog may be used to express my opinions, track my learning, and help others on their learning path. I'm glad I've set foot on this journey, and I hope others might be inspired to see someone change career tracks and know it's never too late to begin coding.

-JG