Assess your habits from week 1: how did you spend your time this past week? What was effective in your habits? What could be more effective? What steps will you take to make that happen?
I have incorporated standing appointments to do things like exercise and just be done with coding. It has been quite helpful in both my ability to code, as well as my overall happiness.
Write a draft of your professional story here as 1-2 paragraphs. Focus on answering the questions who are you, why are you here, and what’s next? Consider how to talk about your motives and values, the turning points that led to your career change, and what you envision for yourself going forward.
Located below (short and long)
Update your LinkedIn profile with the following: updated photo/headshot, headline, summary statement using your story, and Turing added to your experience and education sections. Include a link to your profile here in the journal. Remember the guidelines and tips from the lesson here.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/scott-brabson-88435955
I will be placing our latest project ‘What’s cookin’ on my linkdin with some supporting context. I have been building it with a mind towards showing it off in a portfolio.
From welding, concrete and woodwork, to a cubicle whipping up power points and researching Google ad words - I’ve worn many different hats. It wasn't for lack of drive or skill that pushed me to try new types of work, but a desire to learn and add to my skillset, to do more, to see what is possible. Here at the confluence of increasing age and experience as wisdom, and with a work history as wide as it is long, a career in software development ticks all the right boxes.
Coding is free from the heavy lifting and safety concerns of manual labor (outside of prolonged bad posture), from expensive tools and resources, and from a strict set of rules laying out only allowable possibilities. To begin building, one needs nothing but a text editor and a vision. And oh the things you can build!
As a software developer, I am excited to bring the joy, the vision and the drive of creating within such a framework, and to do so on a team with like minded individuals who are equally passionate about deepening and applying their knowledge of the craft in new and thoughtful ways.
I’ve tried on many, many different hats. For the better part of the last two decades, I’ve donned the blue collar, traded that in for a white one, and proceeded to do that ad nauseum between all manner of work. From the front lines of hospital inpatient therapy, to fine dining, to slinging your lattes, to slinging concrete, to welding, woodworking, marketing and all in between.
It’s not a lack of drive or skill that kept me trying new types of work, but a desire to learn, to do more, and to do more than - and I know many people say this - than to just make money. I enjoyed learning the new skills, challenging myself, seeing how and where skills might transfer from one job to another, and sometimes unexpectedly.
A few times in my job-working journey, I’ve brushed up against something that felt substantial, certainly from the strictly professional point of view. I remember landing a digital marketing job at one company. They were pioneers in the image hosting category, I was excited! Benefits, my own desk, the prestige! It was the type of job one was supposed to have at my age, the platform off which to launch one’s business career.
Boy I really hated marketing. I had a hard time getting on board with selling a product that neither I myself nor many of my coworkers appeared to believe in, be they in marketing, customer service, front end or back. I believe that a major contributor to the downfall of a site that was once a leader in image hosting was both a failure to recognize and evolve with the dynamism of web design/needs/hopes, and to gut features (both from current and legacy users) in order to make space for ad revenue. How many video interstitials will it take before you as a user gets fed up trying to find a photo of your niece? Not many.
What I loved, though, were the opportunities to craft something new from nothing. A fair amount of photoshop, some HTML work (by way of 3rd party editors). To understand and forecast the inner mental workings of any potential customer, and then to craft things (products, UI/UX suggestions, etc) in order to meet those customers/users where they need to be met without knowing they need it.
It was rather unexpected, but coding delighted me. The notion of being able to create just about anything I can imagine is pretty incredible. Of the myriad of jobs I’ve had, I think most fondly on those that fostered creativity and a sense of meaningful growth. The problem is that it was often difficult to make a living in those positions. After a weekend at Turing’s ‘Try Coding’, my mind churned away at coming up with ideas, possibilities!
Turing has exposed me to and taught me about the wonder that is software development. Javascript. A language that literally builds as one speaks it. You literally cannot prevent yourself from building when you speak it. And as your vocabulary increases, as your understanding of syntax deepens, all the more intricate are your stories, all the more fascinating to behold, and then stronger the pull to learn more!
Programming provides a framework in which I am delighted to operate. It weaves together so many aspects of the many experiences I find important, yet separate. In programming, I find I readily need to use all my skills, soft and hard, chipping away at code or getting a team of coworkers on board with the same vision. A place to be creative, a place to concentrate and dig deep into logic, a place to express your goofiness or seriousness - a playground, a theme park, one that the entire world utilizes and you get to design the rides.
I’m beginning to believe that there is much more possible than there is not. I have surprised myself even as a student with what is possible through software development, what can be achieved.
I have great hope that I will find a space where creativity is valued and directed, where it is not eschewed in favor of ad revenue or deviously leveraged for whatever financial gain. I hope to contribute to a team of like-minded people who are passionate about their craft and deepening and expanding that passion and knowledge. I hope to land in a space that values and practices compassion outside of its mission statement, and does so for all, including the perceived other, the opposition.