Starting #100DaysOfCode challenge
That day has come, when I decided to stop procrastinating and to take action for learning to code. I’ve been wanting to do this for a while now, but I always had something that would get in the way. Having a full-time job, taking care of the family (I have a gorgeous 3-year-old girl), after-work events, meeting friends, etc. and I just couldn’t spare that time to learn to code. Why do I want to learn to code, I will tell you in the following lines.
In this article I will tell you a little about me, why I want to learn to code and how does my new journey looks like. I must say, I am a little nervous but this shall pass too.
So, let me tell you a little about me.
I was born in Baku, Azerbaijan. I studied in a Russian school and then went to an International IB-based school. During high school, I remember going to our IT (Information Technology) classes and really enjoy designing and building websites. I loved to design and choose the colors before coding, which now we can call that process ‘UX Research & Design’.
Back then (the year 2008–2011) I didn’t really know what to study at university. I come from a society where women are encouraged to become teachers and doctors, so Computer Science or Engineering was never an option. Azerbaijan is one of the countries, where 674 occupations are reserved for men only and “women are legally barred from working as transport engineers”. Women tend to work in lower-wage careers, such as in health and education (and this is something women are encourage to do from childhood), while men dominate the better remunerated fields. According to a research by World Bank in 2021, in Azerbaijan only 17.2% of the transport and storage workforce covers females. This numbers goes even lower for electricity, gas, stream product and construction.
Although, currently we have many organizations in Azerbaijan supporting women in technology (for example femtech.az), back in 2010 it was not an open idea. And so, with a passion for Art & Psychology, I decided to go to Istanbul to study BA Psychology.
During my four years of university education, I’ve done a number of internships and student part-time jobs. I’ve worked as a Research Assistant, Mentor, and internship coordinator. In 2013 I took a step out of the country to my dream state and went to New York to study at Syracuse University as part of the World Exchange Program. Following that year, I went to Brussels, Belgium to complete an abroad internship in Psychology. While traveling and meeting new people, I learned more about startups and tech opportunities. When I came back to Istanbul in 2014, I had a new circle of friends who were interested in building startups, learning design, and some who were studying computer engineering. In no time, I found myself as a Digital Marketer and Community Builder for a startup on product development & 3D printing.
My new interest led me to study MBA and focus more on Marketing as I was getting excited to learn how to help a startup grow. I was constantly searching for branding and growth strategies. In 2016, I started following Coding Blonde who is now known as Stereotype Breakers. Masha from Coding Blonde was my inspiration to get introduced to programming and learn more about developer communities. In no time, I found myself going to tech events, connecting with other developers, writing blog posts, and creating new content on technology.
Among all, one of my most memorable and inspiring events was Google Sandbox that was held for the first time in Istanbul. That’s where I learned and got amazed by the variety of roles in tech. I also found out about Women Techmakers and Google Developer Groups.
Along with its challenges, pandemics also brought some opportunities. Stanford University, for the first time ever created an online 5 week coding program, taught by Stanford Professors. For someone with no coding background, I wanted to take the opportunity to apply and I made it! More than 80K applications have been sent along, but only 8K students have been accepted. So I spent 5 weeks connecting with others around the world and joining live classes. At the end of the program, I had a game developed for the final project! This program inspired me to continue joining other coding programs and challenges (such as the #30DaysOfFlutter challenge).
Moving on (trying to keep this part short — not working), I now have over 5 years of community building & leading experience along with some coding language skills. I’m currently Google Developer Group & Women Techmakers Budapest Co-Lead, Product Hunt Ambassador, Meta DevC Developer Relations and Community Manager, and an #IamRemarkable Facilitator. However, I want to take my interest in tech even further and challenge myself to learn new skills.
I want to combine my passion and knowledge in Art, Psychology & Coding to become an inspiring community leader with coding skills, who is always learning and sharing to empower others to get into tech by helping them to overcome their fears and break stereotypes.
This is why I decided to make a public commitment and start #100DaysOfCode.
Shortly about #100DaysOfCode
This challenge was initiated by Alexander Kallaway as he wanted to become a better developer but just couldn’t find that time after work. So, he chose to go public and share along with his learning. There are two rules to the challenge:
- You commit to coding for a minimum of 1 hour every day for the next 100 days.
- You commit to encouraging at least 2 other people who are taking the challenge each day, using Twitter.
The idea to commit publicly to learning is to help you become consistent in your learning. One of my favorite quotes I relate to this is by Warren Buffet, “We don’t have to be smarter than the rest. We have to be more disciplined than the rest”. It’s important to continue learning even if you face any challenges. Sometimes it may be discouraging, but keeping it consistent, researching, and talking to others will definitely be a great help in this journey.
To learn more about the #100DaysOfCode challenge visit https://www.100daysofcode.com/.
What now?
Moving on, I want to mention the three people who have motivated and inspired me to start this challenge: Inji Aliyeva (WTM Baku Lead), Yuki Nagano (Backend Engineer), and Eleftheria Batsou (Community Manager at Hashnode). Yuki is a self-taught programmer and I was following up with her learning path, which really encouraged me to take this step. Eleftheria inspired me through her talk on taking this challenge and learning new things during this time. I loved the part about the YinYang principle, where Eleftheria explained that it’s good to focus on two opposite things during the learning path. For example, you can focus on coding and cooking, coding and running, or coding and painting. This way, you can give breaks and avoid any burnout. Do watch her YouTube video for motivation to start this challenge.
Lastly, Inji who is a Computer Science student in Baku and Women Techmakers Baku lead took this challenge to spend more time on coding to develop herself. Inji says,
“100 Days of Code has helped me build consistency. With this challenge, I gained a habit of doing code every day. There were days I skipped, of course, but overall the journey showed me the importance of consistency. On this journey, I completed the Responsive Web Design course on freecodecamp.org. I highly recommend this challenge to anyone who wants to make coding a habit. 100 Days of Code is a simple but effective challenge. It’s all about building up consistency.”
I am starting the #100DaysOfCoding challenge on December 10, 2021 (not everything has to start on Mondays :) ), and if there is anyone else who is also interested, feel free to DM me. Let’s get on this journey together and share our experiences with each other. I will be sharing my daily posts on my Twitter page, so you can follow my journey from there https://twitter.com/faridaelchuzade. I will also try to make weekly posts on Medium summarizing my week. Once I complete this challenge, I will reflect on my journey and see where I want to go with it.
Remember, it’s never too late to start to learn anything!
Here is a quote I would like to end this article with:
“A year from now you may wish you had started today.” — Karen Lamb.
So let’s get going!
