Have you ever wished that you could have a second chance at something? Maybe it was to make that final shot at a basketball game, to retake a test, or even to redo that job interview. For me, one area that I wish I had a second chance would be coding.

I will admit it. In high school I was known as a nerd. I was part of the math team, the U.S. First Robotics club and almost all of my friends were nerds. I was very interested in coding then as well as all things technology. But at the same time I had another love. That love was history. And for a while my love affair with history won out. In college, I decided to major in both history and political science. I even went on to get my Masters in International Relations. Yet, in the back of my mind was always the feeling that I should learn how to code.

It was in the middle of March 2015 that I found out about Tech Talent South. I just happened to sit next to a young woman at a job networking event. Somehow we got to talking about coding. I told her that I had done a little work in Python. She then said that she had just finished at Tech Talent South. I asked her what Tech Talent South was since I had never heard of it. She told me it was a coding immersion program. I was instantly interested. I had heard about coding “bootcamps” and they were something that I wanted to learn more about. My sister in law had  told me that one of her friends went through one and learned a great deal about coding.

I went home that night and quickly checked out Tech Talent South’s website and I was impressed. I then told my wife about it and she was also impressed from what she read. I knew that this was it, that this was a second chance to pursue my lifelong passion!

Now, fast forward one week into the class. I can already say that I am feeling much more confident with my ability to design web sites. I started the week being able to make a basic website. Meaning I could not do much more than place a simple tag, such as “hi”, in an HTML document. I now have an understanding of CSS, bootstrap, adding pictures, YouTube videos, breaking my site up to have columns, working with borders/margins and even creating a blog site. All of this together, makes my personal website look hip and modern. Moving into the second week, I am eager to learn Ruby and see where those adventures take me. Stay tuned to read more!