Learning In The Virtual World
I taught myself how to code in the intersection of desperation and curiosity. Everything I know is owed to a collection of online courses, watched from a variety of curled up positions either on my sofa or a desk chair my boyfriend graciously bought for me after watching me suffer in a stiff dining room alternative for far too long.
I would get off of long shifts at my retail job and enter my own personal digital world, frequenting my own digital footprint. When everything shifted online, a transition that’s been both exhausted and not talked about enough, the learning aspect came as second nature. Learning at my own pace was a great fit for my constantly changing environment, and reaching the finish line in a short time felt equally successful.
Most recently, I took courses at SuperHi and ilovecreatives, getting to know the secrets behind my favorite platform, how to approach the ever-daunting code editor and implement some of the most intimidating animations with confidence and plenty of troubleshooting. I obsessed over applying my curriculum to real life, enticing clients with scroll effects they ultimately scrapped, but I was able to impress myself with.
The tangible results from my digital escapades have not only helped my career but created a community of support, encouragement and inspiration. Classes are a sure way to surround yourself with like-minded people that are willing to try and willing to miss, fall down, and ask for help with eyes locked on a thread. It’s a community of people that are eager to share knowledge and celebrate the moments when everything clicks. It gets you outside of yourself and challenges you to take the classroom out of the bubble of fever dream-esque math problems. The right digital courses can set us up for real life in the best way by getting us excited about experimenting beyond the safety of whatever your WFH classroom looks like.
I’ve graduated from my dining chair to an actual office, and now I take not only Squarespace projects but also full Shopify builds. I breeze through technicalities that kept me up at night, and I have a fundamental understanding of the nuances that are assumed outside of the classroom. Taking myself back to the beginning has given me a clearer path to creating work I imagined would only live on my mood boards. Online classes took me from an obsessive hobbyist to an actual web designer and developer — though I occasionally still create from the comforts of my couch.
