Here's some context leading up to the story; Coming back from living abroad in Taiwan, I had a choice of being held back a year and delaying my high school graduation year or pushed forward to keep my current trajectory. My parents wanted me to be held back, I pushed hard for me to stay in my current year. If I was held back, then I'd miss out on my friends from before I moved, and would have to be forced into a new, unknown population of kids. So after lobbying my parents, I started 9th grade in the fall of 2019. Because I came back to the same school district and same high school I would have went to, I reunited with my friends. Although they were initially confused, they were happy to see me again. Of course I lost a few friends due to distance, but I didn't mind. You make and let go of friends, thats the lifecycle.
Fall 2019
When selecting my classes for the year, my dad told me to do something with computer programming. I didn't want to at first, but I then gave in. The following week, I started school, however the web page development class didn't happen till the second day. The class was around 11:00am - 12:45pm, an extended class due to the lunch break in between. So now my first period class ended, and I'm walking toward my class. My teacher was Ms. Ng, I believe. So as I'm sitting down, I hear a familiar voice saying my name. I look back and behold, its my childhood friend, Ahmed. I'm relieved that there is someone I really trust and know in the class, and we hit it off again. We are goofing around, as normal, and we still listen to the class, doing the assignments our teacher gave us. W3 schools was the teachers main tool to help us with troubleshooting with errors while doing assignments. HTML and CSS was the main focus of the class, so I naturally learned a lot about how websites are structured, and the job field of computer science to those wanting to learn that in college someday.
I then coded my first website, which is now lost due to time. My website was very normal, learning how to create buttons, creating text with clickable links, inserting images, and much more. I was hooked again at coding, but not python as previously explored years prior. My website was decently good, not a "wow" website, but it had clear information that was easy to read. Throughout the year, as I learned more about website development, I realized that even if it was a bit frustrating with the new content I was learning, that it was fun to do. Other than goofing off in class and being a kid, you know, growing up as they call it. As the year went through, the routine of the class was nice, sometimes I got bored, or sometimes the teacher was slow with the lectures. As the routine went by, time started to fly by, and now the school year was coming to a close. Now I'd be a sophmore in high school and that is one less year before commensing college.
What I noticed
Learning to code was a very eye opening part of my life. Thats where I learned what syntax's are, the fundimentals of coding websites and the overall feeling of creating something out of nothing. Because at the end of the day, an empty .html file is a blank, white page. Where you can put in anything you can imagine. It's all you, for you.
- Learning to code was fun and exciting, even if it sometimes stresses you out.
- It set me up for opportunities I didn't realize I had later down the road.
Closing remarks
Even if you are a professional looking at how I came to be, or an ameatur looking at examples of how to code their website, or even someone aspiring to create, you can do anything with the right mindset. This website started all from a thought, and I'm very happy to where this project has gone. Thank you for taking the time to read this, and hope that you learned something about me, as well as yourself.