Feed Your Mind

One of the things I feel very fortunate about is that I was introduced to technology at a young age and at a depth that both interested me and challenged me in ways I didn't know something could. I attended a computer summer camp at UC Santa Cruz leading into my Freshman year in high school and had the opportunity to take two years of programming classes (in the BASIC and Pascal languages) in my Junior and Senior years. This was between 1982 and 1985.

Fast forward to 2014: I've had nearly 30 years to build on that initial spark to earn a degree, a career, and small business ownership, so I have hopes that others will be exposed to things that intrigue them and push them to grow intellectually. There are a number of websites that have come up recently encouraging not only students, but also teachers (and other adults) to learn to code.
A quote from Steve Jobs says it well: "Everybody in this country should learn how to program a computer because it teaches you how to think." That's one of the things that I learned in my process – a new way to think. Programming goes beyond simply creating apps or games or even websites. It transcends those objectives, adding to your ability to break things down into processes and to solve problems using logic and reason.

Do you like puzzles? Word games? Do you enjoy building models or creating things that require artistic thought? Then you might like programming. You can find out very quickly online, where there are some nearly instant lessons, immersing you immediately into the code writing process.

I spent part of my corporate life in technical training, so teaching professionals that they can learn new topics, even in areas that they thought they couldn't understand, let alone enjoy is a passion for me. At Technical Resource Solutions, one of the reasons we created our training center was to allow us to bring new skills to business professionals as well as anyone else with a real desire to improve themselves, to extend their knowledge, or even advance or change their careers. We'd love to hear your feedback!