Why I Decided to Learn to Code, as a former Esthetician With a Bachelors Degree
How it Started
When I was 14 I found the beauty community on YouTube. The way I stumbled into this world was due to my recent purchase of an iPod touch.
The purchase of my iPod to watch hours of makeup tutorials is how I became tech and beauty obsessed.
Again; i have to say it- I was obsessed (to say the least) with the latest Apple Inc. releases. It was the mid 2000’s and Apple products in my possession were akin to a fish swimming in the ocean.
I absolutely needed them. Sure the name was enough to entice any teenager but I really wanted to experience the tech.
I was fascinated by the sleek design, and remember thinking “how is this much power being contained in this shiny black shell”?
The Journey
While watching YouTube I soon discovered MAC Cosmetics was the name in makeup. At 14 years old my goal in life was to work at MAC.
I went to my dad and asked him to order me a NYX jumbo eyeshadow pencil in the shade milk (thanks dad).
I was always the type of person that took more unconventional routes. I decided my way into MAC would be through education. I signed up for the local beauty school when I was 18, four years later.
I was not a hairstylist, or a nail artist and didn’t particularly (and still don’t) care about doing anyone else’s hair or nails.
But I knew this license would set me apart from the other multitude of applicants. At the time MAC was the place to work for makeup artist and getting in was no easy feat.
So in the end I would say pursuing a license was a good choice for me. I passed my exams the first time around (not as easy as it may sound for some) and emerged with a fancy license.
Getting the Job
I applied to MAC 7 times before I got a job. I made a fancy portfolio with face charts, and set off to as many counters as I could. It took about six more years before I got my offer.
Going to College
When I was growing up in a small college town in Kansas I would always look at the big University and think, “Im going to go to school there one day”. I had no idea what I was going to study or how I was going to pay for it, I just knew it would happen.
A few months after leaving MAC I got the opportunity to finance my living expenses and go to college.
My great aunt called me in a rather brusk manner and proceeded to tell me that as a single mother I needed a college education and that she would be helping me get one.
I was shocked, elated, and excited. I applied for the University of Kansas got in and began going to school. It was one of the hardest things I have ever done.
I changed my major midway through my Sophomore year, and still wish I could have majored in Graphic Design. My love for tech never went away and in a freshman English class we were assigned to make an “about us website”.
I became obsessed (again) with web design, and still use some of the design tools that I was inrouduced to today.
How it’s Going
I graduated College in 2021 with a degree is Sociology and Psychology. I had no idea what to do next.
After graduation I felt like I had gone down one of those water slides at a water park only to be shot out in to the abyss completely disoriented.
So I grabbed my daughter and my dog and moved to the tech mecca of Seattle.
There was a lot that went into making this decision. I knew of Seattle, I knew it was a tech hub and I had this idea of me sitting in an A-frame cabin writing in the woods.
I got a job as a teacher at a small Montessori school in Mercer Island and quit a week later. So there I was in this new city, with my child jobless.
My goal was to be completely financially independent and economy proof. By this time I had gone through homeschooling a second grader during a pandemic, and building my first website on Wordpress (which as a complete novice was a huge learning curve).
So, after moving to Seattle in December (don’t do it to avoid depression) I found myself in a lonely city with people who seemed to never leave their apartments.
I found out through dating and meeting people many young people were indeed working for the tech giants like Amazon and Google.
Deciding to Learn Coding
After this exposure to what I saw as my way to affording my cozy writing cabin (and being able to work remotely) I began to teach myself coding.
I did the typical things take Harvard’s CS50 course, watch YouTube tutorials, and I bought “ Cracking the Coding Interview”.
I knew that I wanted to get into a coding bootcamp. I applied for several. The price and the fact some schools didn’t get back to be due to low enrollment rated really bummed me out.
But as I’ve learned with being a mom, going to college at 24 and, pursuing your wildest dreams the key is to never give up.
I start my coding bootcamp in January.
To achieve something, you first have to believe that you can. It helps to look up at that college and say “I will go there”, look up at those penthouses in South Lake Union and say “I will live there”.
You can code, and you can have a remote job that allows you all the freedom you need. Even if that’s sitting in a cozy A-fram cabin writing fiction novels; Go after it.
I’m a Seattle based writer, reporting on my interest in tech and beauty. You can enjoy some of my other work here.
