Coding is limitless and awesome.

Imagine if with a couple pages of words you could write your own music visualizer, instantly search amazon, or freeload starbucks/airport internet. That shameless promotion of my projects aside, you can make anything. Kind of like writing a short story on any genre, with any plot, with whichever characters. You know of the expression, "the only limit is your imagination"? It's at the heart of coding. 

"But I'm an xyz major. I've never taken coding classes," you may complain. Doesn't matter. 100% of coders are self taught. Code changes by the week, and become outdated within a year. Professors recycle their material for at least a few years, which just doesn't work. Imagine learning the latest fasion trends by using magazines from several years ago.

"Ok, but It'll take me years to get any good." Hell no. The best part of being in a field that changes so often is that years of experience don't hold as much weight. You usually peak after only a year. That's how long it takes to get into the coding mindset and pickup a few languages. Just like foreign languages, once you pickup a couple languages you draw so many parallels to the rest that they become easy to learn.

"But why?" Why? Maybe for every reason imaginable.  

  • Want to make something people use? "I helped build this little site called Facebook... have you heard of it?"
  • Want to change the world? A good example is Kiva, which is a website that lets you loan $25-1000 to people around the world who need a little money to make a living, whether for seeds, a sowing machine, or timber. 
  • Looking for a job? The demand is so high and supply so low that coders are always in demand. Heck, even internships average at $30/hour. Coding companies are also the world's best places to work (Google is #1).
  • You'll feel awesome for having the ability to create. Not fixing or servicing something, but to have the power to construct something out of nothing.

 

So what are you waiting for? For the time it'll take you to watch an episode of How I Met Your Mother, you could learn to code. Start here.