For those of you who prefer to watch a video regarding my journey:

Ever since I can remember, I’ve been drawn to computers and video games. Games like Maplestory, MU, League of Legends, Smite, Overwatch, Battlefield, Counter-Strike, Microvolts, well you get the point, I played a lot of video games. While I always knew I wanted to become a programmer seeing the websites and video games you can create using it, it wasn’t until high school, during a computer science class, that I was first introduced to a programming language. Learning C#, I quickly realized I was quite good at it and more importantly, I loved it.

Finding The Common Between Video Games And Coding

By the end of the 11th grade, I, along with a group of friends, participated in a national competition between high schools and secured the 15th position out of 100 finalists. Despite the modest ranking, it was a significant achievement. It was the moment I realized that my love for both video games and programming came from the challenges faced in the process.

Finding My Programming Field

At the start of 12th grade, I gradually shifted my focus more toward programming. Initially delving into Python through YouTube tutorials, my interest declined after a few months. Deciding to look for my next challenge, I googled: “What programming language should I learn next?”.

After looking at some online forums, I recognized that the key lies in creating something with programming knowledge. This paradigm shift led me to explore different programming fields, with a brief attempt at Machine Learning I realized I lacked academic math skills on my part and decided to switch it up to Web Development which looked interesting as well.

My Web Development Journey

Web Development has become my niche, providing an exciting platform for learning new languages, exploring fresh concepts, and new frameworks. Web development had all the elements that initially drew me to video games: the thrill of overcoming challenges and the freedom of customization. Exploring the internet, I learned how to design and create my websites using technologies like HTML, CSS, JavaScript and React. However, I soon realized that to have more freedom in my websites, I needed to incorporate server-side development. This led to me becoming proficient in creating servers using Node.js and working with different types of databases.

Today, after 3 years of working as a full-stack developer, I decided to broaden my academic horizons by pursuing a bachelor’s degree in Computer Science. But it doesn’t stop me from learning new frameworks, learning new programming languages, and exploring new fields. In fact, the inspiration for my blog came to life after learning the Astro framework recently.

The Take Away

The one thing I want you to take from this article is that you should start small and gradually replace video games with programming.