My first coding boot camp at Momentum@Morehouse.... thoughts so far.

I have always found ways to keep learning new things and from my past internships, I noticed how a strong knowledge of coding can help me with the things I have learned about data science, machine learning, and artificial intelligence. It can only help me out in the long run by learning to code from scratch. I have always talked myself out of coding from scratch because I knew how to read code, modify it, debug it, and look for things online if I came across something I did not know how to do. Like with AI, there are so many models out there that you can just modify and you can use with just a basic understanding of coding. I was always scared of building things from scratch because I did not want to break things and I felt like an imposter around those on my past teams who were really good at coding. I did not realize how welcoming the community is to those starting out learning to code. I found a mentor in my most recent internship at Nutanix who was well rounded in many areas of design and accessibility. She left before I could get really comfortable with JS. While she was there, she gave me small tasks to do, resources, and walked me through on explaining the more difficult parts I came across with code. 

The coding community is all about giving back and helping others as we can see with many people mentoring others to code and contributing to open-source projects. I love teaching others what I learn and acquiring the skills to code from scratch from doing a Momentum@Morehouse boot camp will allow me to continue to gain new skills and then share those with others. My two coworkers from Nutanix told me to stop being scared and to just start coding. If you start from scratch, it can really help solidify the concepts. Knowing something like I how did without practicing and putting in the reps on the foundations was only hurting me getting comfortable building things. 

We are still early on in the course, but so far I learned that with my anxiety I need to sometimes step back from looking at code, take a break, and then come back to it. The coding community is so diverse and I feel like with my knowledge so far that I gained that I am better than when I started. I have written more lines of code from scratch then I used to do by just modifying and finding existing code to use. I also learned that most of what you are trying to do with code are out there already and just finding an example of what you are trying to accomplish is a battle in and of itself. 

I love finding ways to keep learning and sharing what I find with others. I have done a number of AI scholarships where it asked for us to build models etc. I used the existing code I found and used that to build the models. I was lazy and did not do the reps and put in the work to write things from scratch. I was only hurting myself by doing this. This boot camp is holding me accountable for building and writing my own code rather than taking and modifying the existing code I find.

I want to someday use my skills to work in enablement at a company. I love training and developing others and having the coding knowledge will help me interact with those who are engineers. I also know that no matter where my future career lies, that coding knowledge will only help out. There are so many applications to code that I can use with what I have already learned in my past education and work experience. 

I had a support engineer offer at an awesome company that is a dream company for many and I gave my offer back. I felt like that was the end of the road with the mistake I made by giving that offer back. Since then, many interviews that I have made it to the final rounds in are getting canceled since this virus happened. I was selected to be an OHUB scholar and go to SXSW on a scholarship from Comcast and that event also got canceled. I was really struggling and then the program manager for Momentum found a way for me to be a teacher assistant and to take part in the first cohort of the Momentum@Morehouse cohort. I even get to use my skills in personal branding, resumes, interviewing, LinkedIn, etc to help out the other students in my cohort. There is always a way to get to where you want to be. Share what you know and find with others and always help out. We are all better together and I am super appreciative of Momentum Learning and Morehouse College for letting me be in this program.

Knowledge is power and by sharing what we know with others we can empower them as well. I do not know everything, but I am really good at helping myself and others find ways to keep learning. If you ever need help, just let me know. I never thought I would get a chance to do a software engineering boot camp, but look at me now. I am 4 weeks in, my brain hurts, I am tired, but I am loving the synapses firing from learning so many different coding aspects. ??