What scared me learning to code was thinking there was a lot of math. I muddled through Calc 2 in college. None of it stuck. This fear came about because the only recognizable characters I saw were things wrapped in braces, + and =. There were even <, >, and arrows! Finding mistakes in math always meant doing more work to fix it, which did not appeal to college me. Instead, coding is like learning to speak a new language. There are multiple translations to do before you make sense.

One of my favorite dishes to make in restaurants was porridge. To be more concise: I liked making risotto in restaurants. Risotto is an instance of Porridge. So is polenta, arroz caldo, and congee. And I like cooking steal head oats, which is also an instance of “porridge.” Calling something an instance, or “instantiation,” is how we say that there is a big definition of something, “porridge,” and there are other foods that fall under the big umbrella definition. Having a larger definition of something, a blueprint, is one of the reasons for Object-Oriented Programming. It also helps to define things in our world.

What scared me about learning to code was thinking there was a lot of math involved. I muddled through Calc 2 in college, but I can’t say that any of it stuck. Calculus forwards is hard enough, now we’re doing it backward? This fear came about because the operators and symbols used are also in math equations. When really, coding is more like writing logical instructions to computers with words. Coding is in a language after all.

Years ago, I fell in love with a career. Every day I went to work excited to do and learn more about the industry. With so many different sources of information and a wide variety of styles to dive deep into it was a learner’s paradise. I’d leave work and spend my nights at home experimenting with a small idea until the late hours of the night. Then I found out what it was that was exciting about this industry. I thrived on solving problems. I loved finding new ways to accomplish anything in the Restaurant Industry, but it turned out I loved solving problems anywhere!