Hi! Hola! Kumusta!

My name is Mia. Earlier this year, I made the choice to take control of my career after much self reflection. The pandemic was a blessing in disguise and allowed me to reflect on what I wanted for my future self and how I wanted to align my personal values with my career. Since then I’ve learned HTML, CSS, Bootstrap, Javascript, jQuery, MySQL, Python, Flask and Django. My current focus is on projects using Python and Django.

My passion for languages and bringing ideas to life drew me into the world of coding. As a “third culture kid” in California with Spanish and Filipino roots, I found that learning new languages helped me to better connect with people from a wide variety of backgrounds. Furthermore, like many Millennials, I wrote my first line of code during the Myspace era. I was fascinated by having the ability to redesign my Myspace layout with HTML and making my page as unique as possible through the lens of a 13 year old. I was disappointed when Facebook became the dominant social network platform due to the limitations of manipulating the design of my page.

Life had certain challenges I had to overcome and I was urged to think more practically. I felt confined by some of my culture’s traditional expectations to conform to the traditional paths within healthcare. Coming from an immigrant Filipino family, I was encouraged to study nursing, but I eventually chose to major in Marketing at Cal State Northridge instead. At the time, I thought it was a practical approach to marry my interests in psychology, people and new technologies.

The focus of my education was marketing analytics, but I had more luck finding internships on the finance side. Those finance internships at Paramount and IMAX led to my first job as a business analyst for Deluxe, an international post production firm, and as a financial analyst at Row 8, a video streaming startup.

Like many others who re-evaluated their paths in the midst of the global pandemic, I realized that it was time to take a more proactive role over my career. After researching different opportunities, I put in my two weeks and began a self-guided coding bootcamp called Coding Dojo.

The first three months felt so lonely. I was used to having a stable job, time for my hobbies in producing networking events and an active social life. I knew I could not succeed unless I fully dedicated myself to this career transition. I studied for 12 hours a day, six days a week for three months. It was purely Eat, Sleep, Code. Leaving the familiar once again and took a calculated risk to make a change in my life so I can find myself in a role where I can intellectually challenge myself, has room for growth and can allow flexibility overtime. I had trouble getting a firm grasp on some of the more difficult coding concepts and cried a few more times than I’d like to admit, but I kept going. I couldn’t have made it without the online tech community and my supportive partner who kept me motivated whenever I hit a roadblock on my path.

Beginning in September, I became more consistent in documenting my coding journey in a Google doc and on Twitter. This way, I am able to track my thought process as well as my progress and prevent myself from making the same mistakes. My plan is to migrate the Google doc entries over to this blog to more formally illustrate my progression. Throughout the past 50 days:

1. I spoke at my first Twitter Space.
2. Achieved my goal of pushing to Github more.
3. Learned more Github functions like git pull, git clone and git rebase etc.
4. Continued working on my second website, Baby Club.
5. Worked on more algorithms in both Javascript and Python.
6. Finally created a portfolio: %[miasibala.com]
7. Started applying to internships and junior dev roles.
8. Interviewed for roles in which I can leverage the skills I have gained this year.
9. Met amazing people online that gave me valuable feedback on how to improve with coding.
10. All while trying to find a balance with other areas of my life like a part time job and most importantly prioritizing my mental and physical health.

Thank you for taking the time to read this blog post!

Follow me on twitter: @miasibala for more frequent updates.