While I was in college, I took on an internship at a company called IN2. It was an advertising shop that had nothing to do what I was studying in school, civil engineering, but  it was fun and exciting. As with all my schoolmates, we were given an email account as well as some hosting space to do with what we wanted. I learned to code and design while I was in school and it soon became my profession. As with a lot of people out there, the first thing I learned was HTML. It was fascinating how I could just write some lines of code, publish it, and shortly thereafter see a webpage appear on my screen. Of course my relationship with coding didn’t stop there. I learned JavaScript, CSS,  PHP, etc. I was pretty hooked.

As my career progressed, I soon found myself trying to straddle the lines of design and development. It isn’t always the easiest line to walk. I felt compelled to continue my learnings on both sides, but it was evident that I was falling more into the design camp. Years later, I am now a creative director, helping to shape the work of my peers to fit the solutions my company has established for our client’s needs. I am not as hands on as I once was, neither in the design, or development process.

The other day I was reading a blog, and they mentioned a site called Codecademy. There has been a surge to try and reignite the passion for coding here in the States. There has always been this outsourcing of development overseas. I for one am not a fan of that approach since it lacks the direct communication with a peer. What I enjoy about this startup’s approach to coding is that it seems more community based rather than individual. I would have to say that during my coding days, that is what seemed to drive me to learn more… The fact that I was learning this stuff with my co-workers was great. I was pushing them, and they were pushing me. It was a great environment to learn in, but since those days, I feel like I have been isolated to learn more and more on my own, resulting in this current stagnant state of pushing myself. Until now that is…

I had read a book the other day called “My Exile Lifestyle” while I was on a plane ride from Atlanta to my hometown San Francisco. It was written by a guy named Colin Wright, and intrigued me with his approach to life. I have always been fascinated by other cultures and travelling, and this guy was doing it and continuing to grow his businesses at the same time. What a way to live! I shortly thereafter liked him on Facebook and started to read his other books. Just the other day, he had written to announce that he was looking to fulfill a promise that he had made to himself to learn a new language. Python. He had invited others to join him in learning something new. I immediately was interested. What better way to reignite that desire to learn more than doing so with some other people. I was in.

Since I have Never Without, we subscribe to a lynda.com account so our co-workers (and myself) can learn new things. I have started the tutorial on Python 3, and have gotten my feet wet. It feels good to broaden my horizons and learn something new. It’s been a while…