When Learning Strikes a Code

There’s a bundle of things you always wanted to do, but you haven’t. You wanted to learn to sketch when you’re in primary school, but you always felt you’d plenty of time for that later. You wanted to learn to play the guitar in high school, but there was always that one show on TV you couldn’t miss. You wanted to learn photography in college, but you always thought you’d better things to do. And then you started working. You wanted to learn some business tricks and branch out into some side-hustles because you’ve read ‘Rich Dad Poor Dad’, if only you knew you’ve never-ending birthday parties and baby showers to attend. Some people manage to find their way out of this tangle and still do everything else you’ve been (and haven’t been) doing, much to your disbelief.

 

In my case, I’m as equally guilted out as you’re. I always wanted to do some interesting stuff to look cool, but I’ve never managed to bring myself any closer. I had my chances. No complaints about that, nor any excuses. And out of nowhere, COVID 19 happened. While it’s been extremely disastrous to the world at large, some people have taken apt advantage of the free time at their disposal. They’ve made tremendous strides in their physical health, while others have also achieved personal milestones in various aspects of their lives. The pandemic hasn’t been too bad, after all; it’s come as a ‘reset’ button to allow ourselves to reconsider the dynamics we’ve been living by. 

 

One of the things I decided to do around this time was reading. I wanted to binge read all those books I’ve missed. In so doing, I stumbled upon some weblogs too, the most notable being Sonam Pelden’s. The piece she wrote titled “Why you should learn how to code” struck a chord (code) with me. I knew this was one thing I always wanted to learn. I’d just read ‘iWoz’ by Steve Wozniak, the co-founder of Apple and Gina Smith, and it only accentuated my interest in coding/programming. I reached out for Code For Bhutan and enquired if they had any coding classes or similar this time around. There was none. So I turned my attention to online courses, and my luck just got better. I found out there were plenty of courses offered at Coursera fully funded by the Ministry of Labour and Human Resources (Bhutan). The first course I’ve enrolled myself in is ‘Web development’, and there are a handful of others on my list such as Python, JavaScript, CSS and HTML, to mention a few.

Welcome Page on Coursera

That’s all I’ve in my plate for now, and I’m looking forward to getting better by day—It’s all about practice, practice, and more practice. So I got to go headlong and grind; a razor can’t be sharpened on a piece of velvet, after all. It’s difficult for me, but I find solace in Woz’s words: one step at a time!