Everyone wants to be useful. Or at least feel useful. Or at least sound useful in justifying how they’ve chosen to spend the majority of their waking hours.
I want to maximize mine.
I’m attracted to software development because it’s the rare field where you can do impactful work and get paid generously for it.
More importantly, I think programming fits my personality (if Myers-Briggs tests are your thing, I’m an INTJ). Like writing words, writing code feels uniquely challenging and fulfilling.
Here’s the thing though: I’m also learning to code as an experiment. I’m fascinated by bootcamps, the future of higher ed, and developing human potential.
The famous Archimedes quote goes:
“Give me a lever long enough, and a place to stand, and I will move the earth”.
He knew that mechanical or otherwise, leverage matters because it affords us an advantage.
Software is leverage. You can build a product once and serve millions of people, around the world, with negligible human labor. It’s crazy to think we’re still in the early innings of its existence.
Education is also leverage. Unlike software, It’s existed for so long that some very old concepts (homeschooling, apprenticeships) are now gaining traction again.
Coding bootcamps are exciting because they tap into these two powerful forms of leverage and empower their students to do the same.
Especially as the shelf life of skills decreases and new niches emerge (pretty sure Salesforce Admin and AWS Architect roles didn’t exist 20 years ago), a level of comfort with upskilling — an ability to fail, flail, but ultimately persevere — becomes increasingly valuable.
It’s not just about getting a high-paying dev job. It’s about embracing the difficult process of learning how to code and reinforcing to yourself that you’re capable of doing other difficult things.
Like with software development, iteration is critical to personal development.
I enrolled at Flatiron because I believe that it will benefit me financially, socially, and emotionally.
Less selfishly, I want to better understand a system with the potential to uplift many, many others.