Software Beyond Engineering

I became a teacher because I love to learn, and I love to make a positive impact on children’s lives. Still do.

I knew that teaching would not be my lifetime career in October of my first school year. Teaching was characterized by exhaustion, sacrifice, work-life blend, and reward.

This is how all teachers feel in their first year. You’re supposed to be overwhelmed! It’ll get better by year 3, I promise.

I began to wonder, in how many fields is it normal to wait three years to feel like you have it together? To feel like you have the support you need? To feel reassured that you are excited for the years ahead?

Fast forward to the end of year two. Mid-pandemic. Mid-remote teaching. The perfect opportunity to spend some time learning something new.

As we all know, Google comes in handy. I knew I wanted a career that opened up opportunities for solving problems, thinking critically, endless learning, and substantial career growth. Bingo: Engineering.

A few of my friends work in the software industry, which gave me some direction. When I realized there were so many different paths to get into software engineering, I was on board. Teach myself? Attend a bootcamp? Go back for a computer science degree? Anything was possible.

It started with this Udemy course, where I learned HTML and CSS — and I had a blast! I built a static website with pride in my work. Given remote teaching and the pause on curriculum-based lessons, I was able to spend my free time learning these transformative and exciting technical skills. Later, I attended free workshops to learn JavaScript fundamentals. I joined some Slack communities to learn from others in the field, or those who, like me, were pursuing a change. I still want to go back to the Udemy course to view unfinished content, at some point.

Turing School of Software & Design was brought to my attention not once, not twice, but numerous times.

At my company, we like to hire Turing grads.

I attended Turing, and I’ll tell you why you should, too.

I wondered which other programs could be a good fit for me. But, the money. But, the long commitment. But, it’s not full-stack. But, I could go to a different school for half the amount of time. I had to weigh my options pretty heavily.

Two people, who I now consider good mentors and friends, met with me to share their Turing experience. They both explained that whether I complete the Front-End or Back-End program, I’d graduate as a confident, strong, ready software engineer. I was sold. Nearly two weeks had passed from the time I found Turing’s rave reviews, to the time I decided to interview and enroll in May of 2020.

Actually, I enrolled on the same day I turned in the keys to my classroom: last day of school.

When one door closes…

Overwhelmed is an understatement. Did I really just make a life-changing decision so quickly? Yup, I did. I started Mod 0 before my laptop could be delivered. I had two amazing instructors that taught me how to use Git — and what it was, for that matter. Also, I learned the basics of data types, object oriented programming, workflow, and more. I reached out to other students to learn more about them, where they came from, and where they want to go next. To nobody’s surprise, we all had a similar goal: improve our lives through our new career. Eight months stood between us and this goal, or so we thought.

I’m not here to tell you why you should go to Turing. I’m here to share my experience, and to reassure you that you, too, can become a software engineer. If you’re interested, Turing will help you get there.

What I didn’t know is that we’d be making progress toward our goal each and every day as students at Turing. In fact, I’d hardly describe our role as “student.” I considered us software engineers from the beginning. Why? Turing taught us how to…

• Struggle productively. That’s right — we were assigned projects that required us to dig into techniques and technologies that wouldn’t be taught for another three days. As a former teacher, I appreciated this. We weren’t given the answer right away, nor did we know what to seek. We weren’t told more about things we didn’t know in the moment; we knew just enough to get us started. We collaborated with our teammates to solve problems (and this often led us to Stack Overflow, so be it). We learned how to strategize when faced with tough challenges, unfamiliar vocabulary, and brand new programming languages. We learned that if you stop struggling productively, and instead find yourself struggling out of frustration, ask for help!
• Be a good teammate. The glue that kept us together for the duration of the program was communication. On the first day of every project, we sat down as a team to structure our DTR: Define The Relationship. This document stayed with us until the project was submitted. We outlined individual and team expectations, any foreseeable limitations, our strengths and areas of improvement, availability, preferred workflow, etc. We were taught to advocate for ourselves, for what we needed and who could provide that support. We were taught to give valuable, constructive feedback to help each other grow. It was never a competition. Still isn’t.
• Ask questions. Questions indicate thoughts, and everyone has thoughts. Everyone is curious, at least they should be. Have a good friend in your cohort? Great, don’t send them a DM every time you need help. I had about twenty fellow software engineers that were always willing to help. We were taught to ask questions to the group, because ultimately someone else wants to know the answer, and you might be surprised by how many people respond.
• Be an empathetic developer. This industry is booming right now. Our jobs are more than just work. They take our time, our patience, and should be considered a large part of our craft. We can make an impact; we can do it away from our monitors, too. Turing has taught us to write code that is clean, readable, and scalable. More importantly, our instructors taught us to value ourselves, our work, and those around us. We were taught to consider how our work impacts the industry and the world at large, and to always ask this question: Why are you a software engineer?
• Learn from your efforts. Nobody became a software engineer overnight. And even those who did — they’re still learning! Don’t strive for perfection all of the time, strive for forward progress. Created a bug accidentally? Awesome, use those problem solving skills to debug and fix it. You can read more about how to debug here. You’ll learn more from your mistakes than you would from being terrified to make any. This mindset is crucial for software engineers at all levels. As long as the field is constantly evolving, your knowledge and skills should be, too. Turing taught us that.

I won’t list the stack of languages, frameworks, and skills we learned…all of that can be found in the curriculum (which is open to the public, by the way). Despite knowing that I could just teach myself from Turing’s lessons, I still enrolled.

My Front-End Engineering Program Certificate from Turing

I enrolled for the instruction.

I enrolled for the collaboration.

I enrolled to better myself.

Now, I am one month post-Turing and I am seeking my first official position as a software engineer. I have approximately eight months of formal education under my belt, through which I’ve learned so much. Today, I am confident, determined, and ready to bring everything I’ve learned to my next team. Thanks to Turing — and thanks to my courage.