Crossroads

“I’m disappointed in you.”

Compared to the draining weeks and months of dance teaching and practicing, a sentence of words actually affected me so much more.

I can’t blame them, because I understood where they came from. As my parents didn’t get to have a good education, their (mainly my mother) dream for me was to see me graduate from University with a degree. And I didn’t manage to get in the one I applied to (and truly wanted).

You see, what I wanted to learn, they don’t exactly teach it in Uni. Web technologies, programming languages, design and video editing are some of the skills that you can actually learn online today. Learning online may even be more relevant! And personally, after being through a Diploma in IT, I’m convinced a CS degree is not what I want…considering the investment of 4 years + a pile of study debt. Only thing is, I didn’t even have a portfolio.

It was a period of self-doubt in my life where I constantly questioned myself. Where do I go with my career? Maybe I’ll barely earn enough. Will I end up not dancing anymore? I really wish to be able to develop websites, but wait, I don’t wish to go into a full-time job and stop dancing!

I actually took a gap year after NS in 2016, switching from an intern of a local start-up, to being their multi-tasking Project Lead, then into a Full-Time dance instructor.

Crazy, weird and out-of-the-ordinary. I know.

Well I made a choice, and am I glad to be on a relevant Web Development track now. First week at Alpha Camp’s been something like an enlightenment journey, a fun one even! Ever since I started exploring this career possibility, I’ve always been learning alone. Sometimes it’s hard and it’s discouraging, so having like-minded people on your journey can be very important really.

Even though I love learning online for free, there’s certainly much more credibility and value here. Having a mentor to guide and teach you, a cozy community to support and grow together, a place to code (and not having to worry about buying a drink to stay in a cafe!) really makes everything easier, and importantly, more enjoyable.

I still think about the kids in my dance classes, and I’m thankful that I still get the opportunity to perform with EV Dance! It’s a balance I wish to have for as long as I can, so let’s just see where this coding part of my life takes me :)

Related posts:

Here we continue our series into some of our furry colleagues at the Noodles Central Support Office. Their contributions are more sentimental than measurable, though some have taken on some…

La amenaza de Trump de utilizar “si es necesario” el poderío militar de EEUU en contra de Venezuela, terminó convirtiéndose en un autogol, porque más que debilitar al gobierno de Maduro y aumentar su…

In this article I want to share my experience, on what I learned from building a simple web application, and overwhelming it with unnecessary features. First and foremost, I’m still in college, so…