ONCE AN ADIE, ALWAYS AN ADIE

It's official. As of last Thursday, I'm a graduate of Ada Developers Academy. Despite considering myself a writer for most of life, I'm at a loss for words now.

There are, of course, the resume-building things. I had very limited exposure to programming before committing to Ada; a database management class in undergrad, some CMS and HTML experience within the context of publishing newspapers. Enough to be interested, and certainly enough to see how tech informs every corner of our lives, but not enough to truly know software engineering before I dived in.

I'm very happy — and very lucky — that my appreciation for tech has only grown as I've gotten to know it better. Last summer, I was slowly pulling together a simple Snowman (or, Hangman, as I grew up calling it) game to learn the basics of Python. This year, I wrote Python code that added to Pfizer's $43 billion evaluation of Seagen. And between those two extremes, I worked through a curriculum that taught me a full stack of web development tech, from backends built with Flask to frontends built using HTML/CSS/JS and React, while also exposing me to the processes that help build truly good code, from test driven development to advanced data structures and algorithms.

But that's only part of it. What truly made my experience with Ada unique and empowering were the people I did it with. It can be easy to undervalue DEI as a box to check off, but with Ada, I truly felt the immense wealth of experience, knowledge, and support that can be found when you invest in under-utilized groups. My cohort was filled with smart, savvy, caring people who not only picked up coding at a breakneck speed but also fostered the sort of community that supported each other and knew how to solve problems. I joined two Adies from a different campus at Seagen, and it solidified to me that we're not only good classmates, but people whose perspective and abilities can make positive impacts in the workplace.

So, going forward, this space is going to be your traditional sort of devblog, where I talk about my programming journey and all the hills and valleys along the way. But, first, cheers to Ada, and the instructors, mentors, and teammates who made it all possible.