I was a kid who really hated computers. One day in elementary school, I recall being so upset after a computer class that a boy asked me with concern why I was so disturbed. “I hate computers!” I responded with frustration. His reply stuck to me. “No you don’t,” he said dismissively. “You just don’t understand them.”
My battle with computers and technology didn’t end there but the truth of that day stuck with me as technological proficiency becomes so much more important to my work and career. This past weekend, I did something I never thought I would ever do. I went to a web coding workshop. On a Saturday. Entirely of my own free will.
Ladies Learning Code is a non-profit that offers female-focused computer workshops for a variety of audiences, including beginners. I’d first heard of their programs about six months ago and was immediately excited at the idea of learning in beginner-friendly environment. I panicked a bit when I saw that the Ontario government was investigating workshops like LLC’s because as independent non-profits, these workshops aren’t being run by certified educational institutions - which is kind of the awesome thing about them.
When I heard that there’d be an Edmonton workshop, I jumped at the chance to register. My hatred of computers has faded with access. They were an easy thing to hate as a 10 year old from a low-income, single-parent household. They represented a frivolous luxury that my child’s brain knew I had no hope of touching. They were for rich kids. Specifically, they were for rich boys. I was painfully aware of my limitations.
The world has changed. The two weeks of HTML experience I gained in a required computer course in the seventh grade has been more useful to me in my working life than almost anything I learned at university. The deeper I get into my current field of study and the more I know that I want to be able to work for myself, the more I realize how important the ability to understand at least the basics of web development really are.
As soon as I walked up the last flight of stairs into the Startup Edmonton space, I knew that this wasn’t going to be a computer class of my elementary years. It was comfortable and inviting. Everyone was friendly and helpful. It was okay to be a beginner. It was okay to make mistakes and not know what the hell you were doing. And it was awesome. My brain was literally pounding by the end of the day with all of the things I had learned and the possibility of more.
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| There were also cupcakes |
The workshop covered some basic introductory HTML and CSS. Not enough to turn me into a web developer, but enough to get me hungry for more. Together, we worked through the creation of a simple profile webpage. Nothing terribly fancy, but certainly applicable, especially for someone in a creative field like myself. Instructors and tutors showed us how to examine the code of our favorite pages so we’d be able to know where to look for examples of great code. They showed us how to customize items that were pretty standard. The tutor at my table, Ty, was an experienced developer and he was more than happy to share some of his favorite places on the web to look for help and inspiration.
The world of computers is not such a scary place anymore. It probably never was, but the aura of mystery that kept me at bay is gone now. And maybe that’s the most important thing I learned on Saturday.
