There were many people I wanted to be as a child: a Power Ranger, Spider-Man, an engineer (I didn’t know what an engineer did; my dad just kept telling me to be one because of the money); but there was one that was way at the top on my list. I dreamed to become Batman. I was Batman for Halloween, had a Batman sweatshirt-sweatpants combo, games, toys. Batman: The Animated Series was the cartoon I watched the most and I loved it and would never miss an episode and it was the best. THE BEST. I wish I was five again.
In a way—in a way—I’m still pursuing that dream.
When I was in college for graphic design, we had one course on Adobe Flash and one course on web software. In total, that’s about 40 hours of class time for each course. It wasn’t enough; our Flash instructor barely showed up, and we were learning how to use Dreamweaver—not how to actually write code. It was a little disappointing but I convinced myself that I didn’t need to know Flash or Dreamweaver/web design (at the time, those were one and the same), because I just LOVED print design. You can hold printed pieces, touch them, feel them. We can leave web design to web designers. We can leave Flash to… to those Flash people. That’s what I kept telling myself.
In spring 2012—a year after I graduated—I landed my first real graphic design job. It was in the marketing department at the head office of a company (which shall remain nameless) on Bay Street. The dress code was business casual, it was downtown, I had to commute. I was finally all grown up. Awesome. I was loving it. My official title was Graphic and Web Designer. It turns out that I didn’t need to do much real coding; a lot of it was making edits to the company’s site through a CMS. The pay was quite decent. I was very comfortable.
By then we all learned that Flash was on its way out. I guess missing out on learning Flash was okay after all. Ah, but what about HTML5 and CSS3? People were excited for HTML5 and CSS3. Those were scary things with which I wasn’t too familiar.
One day, I looked at my nameplate that hung above my desk. I thought to myself, “How could I call myself a Graphic AND Web Designer if I knew only what I learned in one web design web software course I took in college four years ago?” I couldn’t. It was embarrassing. I also started to find my work clothes lame and uncomfortable. I decided that I really needed to do something. I started to check out the local colleges’ continuing education programs. My coworker suggested I enroll in an HTML and CSS course she stumbled on. It was offered by an organization called HackerYou. It wasn’t a school; it was something else. Something totally different. It lacked the bureaucracy and BS that plagues traditional schools’ curriculums (curricula??).
I learned so much in those 12 weeks. The atmosphere was very inviting, very welcoming. It was our instructor and mentors’ belief that anyone from any walk of life could learn this stuff without any prior knowledge of writing code. By the end of the course, I could do nothing but agree with them. I fell in love with what I was learning. The experience was, dare I say, life-changing.
Which brings me back to the whole Batman thing.
I learned about the full-time bootcamp. Perfect timing. Not only was it something I wanted to do—it was something I had to do, or else I’d be stuck in dress pants and tucked-in shirts for eternity. I’m leaving behind my stable office job, my stable office pay, and my business casual attire to train in the ways of (front-end web development) ninjutsu. I’ll have to climb to the top of an Urban Outfitters to a place called The Lab. I’ll assume you’ve seen Batman Begins.
Can’t wait to start training.
Keeping up with the times 