I can honestly say that I wouldn’t have my current career if it weren’t for the things I’ve learned online. I was initially hired at Teachers College for my editing skills, but every time I’ve been given larger areas of responsibility or been promoted, it’s been because of my tech skills, which are entirely self-taught.
From what I’ve read about women’s careers in tech, it seems that a good number of us who came of age in the early aughts and became front-end web developers had similar points of entry: We had blogs during our teen years (R.I.P. xanga.com) and picked up some HTML and CSS knowledge while noodling around with our templates. Then, when we entered the workforce, we knew just a little more about coding than our colleagues did and found our way into opportunities to use those rudimentary skills. Some online learning, lots of trial and error, and voila: a career in technology.
As a sidebar, I’ve always found it funny how small incidents can be turning points in your life. I still remember the first time a friend taught me to view the source code of a webpage. I was so impressed; I hadn’t even known that was possible. That moment also taught me a way of learning: It taught me to say, let’s pick apart something someone else did and figure out how they did it. I’d never been taught to learn that way in school, or by my parents. The idea that girls should be taught to code hadn’t hit the mainstream or coalesced into a movement yet.
Being able to figure things out as I go, though—knowing that I can learn new ways of using technology by exploring and asking questions—has given me a sense of self-efficacy that, borrowing from the British comedian Eddie Izzard, I like to refer to as “techno-joy.”
Beyond what I’ve taught myself for work, there are just so many everyday things I learn online. The internet is where I get 99% of my news (especially Twitter, which is IMO the best source for breaking news). It’s where I go when I need cooking or home repair advice, or when I need to know why my cat is acting so weird.
A lot of times, when I need information or instruction, my preference is to seek out articles and forum discussions—I am definitely a learn-by-reading sort of person. But I also had a lovely experience learning by video recently that makes me think I’ll do more of that in the future.
I’ve been pretty strict about social distancing in the past few months. I live alone, and the only people I’ve seen socially since March are my parents, and only once. My hair has also gotten quite long. So when the weather got warm, I found myself reminiscing about how my mom used to French braid my hair for me in the summer sometimes. That was always such a special treat. And because the pandemic has taught me new forms of self-reliance, for the first time in my life, it occurred to me that maybe I could do it myself.
So of course, I turned to YouTube for instructions and found a beauty and lifestyle vlogger with a great tutorial video. She demonstrated so clearly how to position your hands to braid your own hair, which was the part I never quite understood. After about half an hour of struggle, with very tired arms, I had my first self-braided hairstyle. It was a relief to have my hair off my neck in the hot weather, and a balm to feel connected with my mother in that small way.
Suffice to say, online learning has enriched my life in countless ways, and I’m excited to be in a course that will teach me what goes into effective online teaching.
