As someone who loved to code in high school, amongst many other interests, I always enjoyed seeing\u00a0the fruit of my labour come to life. To me, this was my canvas, my piece of clay, a fresh piece of sketch\u00a0paper. I remember once, I was able to make the image of a cartoon lady bug scamper across the top of\u00a0my screen, turn 90 degrees southward and then zip to the bottom right corner. I was awestruck. I had\u00a0made something that had in turn done something else. This was finally an art form that meshed my love\u00a0for technology with the want to build something. Luckily, it was also not too hard to pick up.<\/p>\n
Unfortunately, I quickly learnt I needed to start thinking about my professional aspirations (because\u00a0every 18-year-old loves hearing that). I was told that these teenage interests, like my basic coding\u00a0abilities, either had to become a career option, or fall to the wayside as a waste of energy and focus. My\u00a0outgoing personality and \u2018talk-a-lot\u2019 attitude gradually drew me to a management degree, and then into\u00a0sales. While I greatly enjoyed my studies, and the early years of what could be a long career, I still held a\u00a0deep fascination with how things were created. Like many other service-oriented jobs, I rarely saw the\u00a0actual outcome of my work. All those long hours, late nights, blood, sweat, and tears simply boiled down\u00a0to numbers and dollar signs. There was nowhere I could truly look and see what all my hard work had\u00a0become.<\/p>\n
Then I took a course at BrainStation. The Introduction to Web Development course teaches the basics of\u00a0HTML5 and CSS, as well as a touch of JavaScript. These 3 coding languages play together to create the\u00a0websites we all enjoy on our laptops, cellphones, and tablets today. While the first few courses started\u00a0with the basics, adding in images, changing font size and colour, creating hyperlinks, you could slowly\u00a0start to see everything weave itself together. In a matter of weeks, I had the growing sense that I was\u00a0learning an art form. This level of creating, the ability to work and labour, then instantly see the site\u00a0come to life, was mesmerizing. The sense of accomplishment of getting the website to appear just right\u00a0was more gratifying than any deal I\u2019d closed that day. I believe there are a lot of creative individuals in\u00a0the world who might lack a medium to test themselves on. While coding may not be for everyone, I can\u00a0say confidently that picking up the HTML5 language (as well as CSS) is not an impossible task. There is no\u00a0extensive math to be learnt, nor any customized machine required. It all takes place on the devices we\u00a0use every day in our professional and personal lives. For me, this ability to truly create something\u00a0relevant to the modern web, was one kick that helped me start thinking big. I cannot honestly say I\u00a0know where I will take this new skill and passion, but I can assure you there are many applications I\u00a0already see for it. Stay tuned!<\/em><\/p>\n
![\"Screen](\"https:\/\/brainstation.io\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/Screen-Shot-2016-05-03-at-10.18.33-AM.png\")
<\/a>