Why Every Millennial Should Learn Some Code
Why Every Millennial Should Learn Some Code
In a rapidly digitizing world, having tech skills — especially coding — can be your ticket to better personal and professional opportunities. Here, two self-taught coders explain why millennials, or really anyone, should learn how to code. It changed their lives for the better, and it can do the same for you.
Technology is everywhere
Thousands of companies across industries are relying on technology to power their business operations. “I can’t think of any company that doesn’t have technology embedded in their operations in some shape or form,” says Evan Leong, cofounder of Fount.
Regardless of your specific role, he believes learning to code “will vastly increase your potential in becoming a valuable asset at any organization.” Or, if you don’t have a job yet, it can be what helps you edge out the competition during the hiring process.
Improve your problem-solving and logic skills
If you’ve always thought of yourself as more of the artist type–right-brained, creative–then coding can help you gain balance. Prior to teaching himself code, Leong navigated life based on feelings and gut instinct alone: “When questioned on the logic of my decisions, I struggled to articulate them in comprehensible steps.”
Logic, problem solving, and organization are some of the cornerstones of programming, and practicing with code helps you exercise that “left” side of the brain. According to Leong, “Learning to code has not only helped me process the rationale behind my own thinking, but has increased my ability to create more well-thought-out decisions through organizing my thoughts and intentions.”
It makes you better at what you already do
Astrid Countee is an anthropologist and a web developer. On the face of it, those careers don’t have much in common — but Countee knew she could fit coding into her life as an anthropologist, rather than paving over her past.
So she made her own website, started a blog, and began to write about her journey “learning how to weave together my programming career with my previous training as a social scientist.”