The world has come a long way since the early days of Macintosh and Microsoft 95, yet many stereotypes about coding and the field itself still persist. However, today there are more jobs that either require or are based on coding skills than ever before. TV shows and movies such as Silicon Valley and Social Network have helped make coding more media-sexy, and more and more youth are learning to code on their own and entering the field. Still, there is one more massive resource that hasn’t been fully utilized yet — women. Girls are not encouraged in the same way as boys to study subjects such as computing or natural sciences, which has an affect on how they themselves see coding, aka an unlikely career option. Luckily, in recent years more attention has been paid to this gender gap among coders and old perceptions are starting to change. It’s also time to bust the myth that coding is something that requires high intelligence and the IQ of a genius — the basics are quite easy to learn, for anyone! And if this hasn’t convinced you of learning to code, the following three reasons surely will!
Reason 1 – Solve your own problems
Have you ever needed a website for your band, wished that there was an app that did XYZ or felt the pain doing some repetitive task and thought there must be a better way to do it? By learning to code you can unlock a different way of thinking about problems you encounter – you start to think “can I solve this myself?” instead of hoping for others to provide you with a solution. Once you’ve mastered the basics you start to discover more and more possibilities and the learning gets easier — it’s very easy to just get carried away!
It’s also good to remember that after you have solved your own problems you might want to start solving other people’s problems – for money, of course.
Reason 2 – There’s more to it than you’d think
Many people connect coding with the falling green letters on a screen like in the movie Matrix, or an unsocial nerd sitting in a dark room on the computer with a mountain of energy drinks next to them. Okay, that’s a bit extreme, but still in general coding is not considered a sexy hobby or profession, although the image has started to change thanks to media-sexy companies like Microsoft, Spotify or Supercell that people would kill to work in. More and more women are also entering the field of coding, though there are still a lot of prejudices concerning females in IT.
Coding can also be connected to visual and graphical interests. Even if you’re not an artist or a designer per se, you can still learn to create beautiful looking websites and apps that are a joy to use. However, coding can basically be linked to almost anything since basically any field requires some coding skills nowadays.
Everyone is passionate about something and you can be sure that there is some aspect in that passion of yours that could be applied to coding. Just remember that there is so much more about coding than you might think.
Reason 3 – Jobs, jobs, jobs
Let’s be honest, the job market for coders is phenomenal today. There is a huge demand for coders at the moment and the salaries are quite lucrative even for junior level coders. You might have seen the depictions of software companies in movies and TV series where they sit in Fat Boys, drink craft beer, and play ping pong in the office. Of course that’s not completely true but honestly most of it is. It’s also not uncommon that companies provide their employees with unlimited drinks and snacks.
So, if you have been struggling to find a job at your own field you might want to consider sprinkling your field specific skills with some coding magic powder – remember the previous reason? By doing that you will have an advantage to your competitors trying to find the dream job you are also pursuing.
Coding is the skill of tomorrow – schools in Finland are starting to teach it at lower levels already and more and more jobs are born every day for it. However, coding is not something your learn only by reading. You WILL need to spend some time actually doing it! It’s highly recommended for you to create a small portfolio of your projects that you can present when applying for a job – it makes all the difference.
Hopefully your inner coder has been awakened and you’re now inspired to learn the secrets of coding. And don’t worry, it doesn’t mean you have start drinking Red Bull!
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