Yes, it is happy birthday to my coding self! Snapchat popped up this morning with one memory. It was a photo of a laptop screen. This one:

That was my very first line of code. Ever. It was my first day at coding bootcamp. I had been unemployed for a week or so by this point, but what I didn’t realise at this point was that my research career was now over. Right at that point, I was starting to embark on my coding life.

And, I’ll be honest, I had no idea where it would take me. Actually I have a vivid memory of seeing that for loop on my teacher’s powerpoint and her saying “Can anyone tell me what that is?” The room was silent. I thought then and there that this was going to turn out like GCSE maths, I may enjoy the logic but there was no way I was ever going to understand those random letters and symbols.

Now, two years later, I get to see other’s who are starting out on their coding journey. People with the same doubts that I had. And now I get reassure those coders that it does get better.

So let me jump back in a time machine, and demonstrate how much I have learned over these two years. Here we go:

24 things my past self would be shocked by

1. I learned how to deploy an application
2. I’ve learned all about testing and put it into practice
3. I’ve created a pull request and acted on the feedback
4. I’ve merged to master
5. I may have made changes directly to master (but shush, don’t tell anyone)
6. I bought my own laptop
7. And learned about AMD Ryzen 5 vs Intel 5 Processor
8. I bought an iPad
9. And a wide-screen monitor
10. And a monitor stand!
11. I have a tech blog
12. Along with a tech twitter
13. And a tech Instagram account
14. Even tried my hand at podcasting
15. I got my first ever developer job
16. And then went onto a second!
17. I have attended five hackathons (even coming second in two of them)
18. I have attended meet ups where I was the only woman in the room
19. I answered a question on Stack Overflow
20. Took on a lead role in a dev project
21. I’ve built my own SQL database
22. Created queries
23. And (touch wood) not dropped a table in production
24. Learned JavaScript and C#, even touched on TypeScript

If I could go back and ask 2019 Jade where she saw herself in two years, she would have said employed. Living in Manchester. And maybe still dabbling in the coding world. But I did not know that I would be where I am today. I probably did not expect even expect to be on the apprenticeship, though I knew it would be available for me to try for.

So if you are also starting on your coding journey, I wish you all the best of luck. You’re going to love it!