I did it…
These were the words I announced to my parents with tears in my eyes when I told them I graduated from the Flatiron School software engineering program.
I’ve never felt such a deep sense of satisfaction of achieving something I think is truly great. I put a lot of grit and hard work into this program. I cried. A lot. I had my happy moments, and moments when I felt like a failure. But it was those that were around me that helped me push through when I thought I couldn’t make it through.
After high school, I went off to college, at first I didn’t quite know what I wanted to study. Thought it’d be business and then I took a computer science course and absolutely fell in love. About the same time, I had the dream of moving to New York City and so I quit school to pursue that. For about 2 and a half years, I was living in New York working as a realtor. I swore that being a realtor was something I’d want to do for the rest of my life. Right about the time Covid-19 hit, the real estate market became so volatile and I had to quickly think of something else I could do. I dabbled in different computer languages and UI/UX design and nothing stuck because I needed better accountability and a better system for actually learning programming. This is where I began my journey at Flatiron School.
Flatiron was perfect for what I needed, I needed something remote and straight-forward as well as the accountability and community that Flatiron is praised to have.
You can do anything that you set your mind on.
These were the first words my mom told me right as I was about to start the course. I was worried about how I was going to be able to be a full time student and a new mom with a baby on the way. With my hormones rampart, I’d start crying for any reason. My saving grace was that my mom so happened to be on disability leave for several weeks due to a shoulder surgery, so she was able to spend tons of time with my baby.
She’s been my number one supporter throughout this journey. In the evening I’d reward myself after I was done coding and her and I would watch movies with Murna. We’ve probably watched every single good Disney, Pixar and Marvel movie. And she’d let me driver her car to go get Starbucks every single day.
This time I was able to spend with my mom and Murna, I’d never be able to take back and so grateful for it while I was in the program. It made me feel a little bit more human.
It’s only the beginning.
A close one told me this when I finished the program. Finishing this program has allowed me to actually feel like I could go on with my life and not feel like I’m stuck. It allowed me to dream again and look forward to getting more things done.
We Are Family.
Lastly, I learned the importance of a community. Each person I met was on their own journey. Each of us had to deal with our impost syndromes and had to be humble enough to say that we were struggling and to ask for help.
#javascript #flatiron #programming #tech