{"id":6,"date":"2022-09-23T20:06:13","date_gmt":"2022-09-23T20:06:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/orrellr\/?p=6"},"modified":"2022-09-23T20:06:13","modified_gmt":"2022-09-23T20:06:13","slug":"dining-table-napkins-and-coming-full-circle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/orrellr\/2022\/09\/23\/dining-table-napkins-and-coming-full-circle\/","title":{"rendered":"Dining Table Napkins and Coming Full Circle"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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I first started learning to code on my own when I was 13. I’ve come a long way since then, having taken a few different paths. But now, here I am, in my last term of college about to get my Bachelor of Science degree in Computer Science.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Do you want to see my first web site? Here it is.<\/a> I originally made it when I was 13 (we’re talking 1998) and last updated it when I was 15. It’s about the cats I had at the time. I can’t believe it’s still up! <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The thing that got me into learning HTML and CSS was when my dad took me to a work seminar on Macromedia Dreamweaver (which later became Adobe Dreamweaver). After that, I was hooked.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Later, when I was in high school, I took two years of programming classes. We learned Pascal, C, and C++. It wasn’t unusual to find me working out a problem on my napkin rather than eating my dinner at the dining room table. I had always loved doing logic problems, but programming took it to a whole new level. There were now infinite problems I could solve in many different ways!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My path from there was somewhat circuitous. First I wanted to write, but it didn’t take me long to remember I wanted to code. However, it turns out I’m terrible at physics, and that’s the honest reason that I ended up with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in Interactive Media Design, which did include coding but also lots of other things (and not physics!).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I worked in web design for a few years but had a negative experience, so I became a medical coder (not to be confused with programming) and did that for six years. By the end of it, I was pining for programming again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Through self-study, I sharpened my rusty skills. With the help of a friend in the industry, I eventually got a job as a software engineer working the backend. That’s really what I always wanted to do. However, after a few more years, I found it too hard to get another job without a degree in Computer Science, so I decided it was finally time to get one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That brings us to now. I almost have it and can’t wait to go back to work! I’m so glad that I always knew it was okay to change my mind and that I ultimately came back around to getting this degree. Working in computer science can be stressful, but it’s definitely worth it for me.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I first started learning to code on my own when I was 13. I’ve come a long way since then…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12736,"featured_media":7,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[3],"class_list":["post-6","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-bio"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/orrellr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/orrellr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/orrellr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/orrellr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12736"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/orrellr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/orrellr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/orrellr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6\/revisions\/9"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/orrellr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/orrellr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/orrellr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/orrellr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}