shfyq6119 - Coding (@42++)

"Hello World\n";
#42Singapore

"....you've already known enough of the world of light and sound;

now, see the world of symbols and numbers...."

Coding, programming, came into my life by a series of happenstances, much like every other encounter that required me to adapt while on the job. As with photography and videography, likewise my first experiences of coding and programming was through running a game design & development programme for students in a school, with a respected peer who showed me the ropes at the very beginning (Thanks Isman!)

While freelancing as a trainer/instructor for teenagers in schools, being involved in the executive duties of the ICT department working with tech was a welcome inevitability that I had to embrace while advancing into nigh-unknown territory, one foot behind the other always, especially during and around the lockdown phase that the world had briefly stepped into. Becoming tech-savvy even at minimal was an indispensable skill to gain for most of us, but since I had some exposure of having to work on basic databases at the bare-minimum, the impact to want to cultivate a better clarity to improve my competency at work was felt greater than I anticipated.

My time as a volunteer and a project coordinator with some nonprofit efforts around the world was the starting point when I was completely submerged for the first time in having to work with the simplest, barest and most basic option available within my reach (MS Excel, or Google Sheets) to do some database management. Power Query, VBA, complex layers of Excel functions became familiar to me. The data-centric demands of the work I was doing eventually revealed the quagmire of incompetency I was stuck within, coupled with the helpless sense of inadequacy that plagued me while out in the field managing some projects and running some operations. I soon found myself in a situation which left me with the realisation of one undeniable truth; I found myself overcompensating for a glaring weakness in my skillset, with whatever I was trying to achieve with an almost clinical obsession on efficiency and effectiveness. The desperate attempts to cope finally bore its weight on my back (quite literally after carrying heavy loads up down and around hills, mountains and valleys).

Fast forward a few years when I still had that little message kept in the deepest recesses of my head: I wanted to study something of Data Science & Analytics some day, and at least be fluent enough around computer systems to comfortably wield its potential and yield results at will. I then committed to being a freelance trainer while looking for other opportunities to learn and pick up the skills I desired, somehow. I was still confident in my ability to learn fast with the experiences I gained while doing photography & videography out in the field. I became a freelance trainer to continue teaching and imparting all the skills and experience I have learned out in the field with photography and videography, also with some basic project management & leadership skills to students who had a passion or interest in playing with cameras. It was my way of passing forward the knowledge and skills I had gained through my peers.

Unconsciously driven by the urgent plea of that little message hidden in my subconscious I was already turning into a geek with his hands on the techy gadgets of camera optics and audio works. Then it took me a while to notice, but i was increasingly required to solve bigger problems that soon went beyond my reach (be it above my paygrade or above my core competencies) and my scope of duties.

Each time that I somehow winged it, I somehow managed to learn pretty fast by applying some abstractly arcane alchemy of knowledge and wisdom miraculously crystallised from my past experiences, and yet as more time went by, time would eventually prove to me again the incontrovertible truth. I was not initiated into some of the most basic things of whatever I was doing. Each problem that I could not solve revealed to me the limits of my savvy nature. I was not contented with my perceived incompetency.

By the standards I’ve been exposed to, I judged myself as still merely a very capable and handy consumer way above the average amateur. This frustration carried through and made me only enjoy the work I did ever lesser the more time I burned through. The exhaustion and dissatisfaction at myself gnawed at my conscience and I decided, no, I need to dig my way out of this hole I have sunk into, and I need the knowledge to do that now.

Year 2023 I was taking a break from a long stretch of training that I did for some schools, and I found out somewhere in my news feed 2 articles one talking about some tuition-free school, and the other added something along the lines of “no prior education required”. I was like a dog in thirst finding an oasis. All wariness and weariness went with the wind as I dived into the month-long coding marathon which was a humbling yet inspiring experience. I had only one avenue of learning during my time working and picking up skills, both by chance and also by necessity for the sake of survival in a rapidly evolving technological environment, resonating with the key element of the “42 Pedagogy”. The savoury scent of the term “Peer Learning” sealed the deal for me and led me to plunge into the Piscine which began my new journey.

"42 is more like an art school", to paraphrase Nicolas Sadirac (one of the founders) in some articles, spearheads in a remarkably novel yet familiar approach in somewhat a confrontation towards IT and the computer sciences -- one previously almost unheard of in big tech. This short, almost misleadingly simple statement is itself also remarkably dense, layered, and nuanced to a level that asserts; there is a specific epistemology intuitive towards solving human problems that should be applied to computer science which arguably should transform the industry from a merely technical profession to something more. This for me was a most attractive deal to experience because exactly what that something more is, will only be discovered and defined by people who attended 42 and nobody else in the world.

However, fast forward a year later, I realised the herculean climb on a steep slope that became harder to navigate, started to tire me out beyond my capacity. Between juggling severely restricted finances from working freelance while trying to meet deadlines and exams starting from what was as good as zero background, I dropped out of the course after failing to clear a milestone by a small margin, and realised that studying part-time was not for a person like me who needs total immersion and undivided attention to thrive. Nonetheless, I came out a person with much better literacy towards computers and technology than I was before. The people I met and learned with (and from) gave me valuable insights into the industry and the work that is involved. It was a net gain and I came out better than before with some newfound skills that I still apply even during my current work today.