First off let me introduce myself. My name is Michael Baisden, and I am 33 years young. I never knew my father, and my mom was in an out of jail my whole childhood. I was in the foster care system and then stayed with my grandmother and cousins up until my grandmother was too sick to take care of us. Then I went to live with my older cousin who had 6 children of her own at the time and a lot on her plate. So I had to go back to foster care at 16 where I was sent down to southern Ohio.

This is my very first blog, and I barely passed English, mainly due to a lack of interest, so wish me luck. I'm using this blog to document my journey, so this first entry will be my introduction to my coding, programming background, and overall computer knowledge.

It all started in the Columbus public school system, at McGuffey Elementary School, in computer class, of course. I just played games and had fun downloading cheat codes for Grand Theft Auto 3. Then I took a class on Word, PowerPoint, and Excel in middle school. When attending FCI High School, I was fortunate enough to join an after-school program where we built a computer and were able to take it home. The program had us put all the components in the tower (hard drive, CD burner, floppy disk drive, memory, visual card, motherboard, etc.). The program did an amazing job explaining what each part did and how they are all connected.

After the hardware side was over, we moved on to learning about software, ROM, RAM, command terminal, and safe mode. We installed the operating system Windows XP and software like Word, PowerPoint, and Excel. After completing the program, the students were able to keep the computers, which was amazing for me because we never had a home computer before that.

Down in southern Ohio, at 17, I attended Scioto County Career Technical Center for information technology, where I was introduced to coding for the first time. I had an amazing teacher who was very knowledgeable and great classmates. I still remember working on if statements and loops. The class not only taught a little C++ coding language but also some visuals. We had to reconstruct the classroom, including all the tables, chairs, and computer windows. Unfortunately, I could not finish after completing one year because I aged out of foster care. My aunt and mom came to get me, and took me back to Columbus to graduate at Hilliard Darby High School.

I have not done anything with that knowledge since graduating. I had to start working quickly. I started at Donato's Pizza, then moved to calling on student loan debt, tree care, and then from warehouse to warehouse. I was looking for a career, the right path, and happiness in the workplace, but to no avail. I now work in the healthcare industry. I work with clients who have IDD and help them live their best lives. While it is more fulfilling than warehouse work, it is still not enough. I know my worth, and I'm willing to put in the work to achieve it. I'm tired of being underpaid, underestimated, and overlooked, and I'm ready to do something about it.

About two months ago, I started an LLC for hauling. I did not want to go to the banks looking for debt, so I started looking into other ways to fund my business. I saw an ad for a code camp stating "earn while you learn," which sounded good to me. With my interest in coding and a little background, it seemed like something I could really get into. So, I reached out, filled out the financial part, did not get the okay from the lender, and never heard from them again. So, I looked into it myself to see what was out there. To my surprise, there is so much free information waiting for me. There is no excuse and no need for an intelligent, highly motivated individual like myself to have to go to a school or camp.

So a month ago, I decided to become the best self-taught programmer I can be. I promised myself to give it my all. After more research (thank you Google, YouTube), I am confident in my path. I started with a 25-hour Harvard CS50 full Computer Science university course on YouTube. It was great for understanding a programmer's mindset. They covered coding languages like C++, HTML, JavaScript, and Python. Fundamentals like arrays, algorithms, how memory is used and stored in computers, how we access it, data structures, and more.

After finishing that, I moved on to freeCodeCamp.org and have been loving their hands-on, all-in-one system. I completed the Responsive Web Design course, where I learned HTML (Hypertext Markup Language) for content and CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) for design. It also teaches how to make webpages that respond to different screen sizes by building a photo gallery with Flexbox and a magazine article layout with CSS Grid. I have now moved on to the JavaScript Algorithms and Data Structures Certification, where I am learning about JavaScript fundamentals like variables, arrays, objects, loops, functions, the DOM, Object-Oriented Programming (OOP), Functional Programming, algorithmic thinking, how to work with local storage, and how to fetch data using an API.

Then I will move on to the Front End Development Libraries Certification to learn how to style sites quickly with Bootstrap. I will also learn how to add logic to CSS styles and extend them with Sass, and how to create powerful Single Page Applications (SPAs) with React and Redux. After that, I plan to move on to the Odin Project. There will be some overlap with HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and React. I will also get an introduction to GitHub to learn how to share my code with others on a project and save changes to my code. Meanwhile, I will do some Codewars challenges and look for more information on Google and YouTube in my free time. I have a few ideas for some apps I want to create. I should be able to start in a few months once I feel more comfortable with the language and material.

That is the beginning of my programming journey. I also plan to learn Back End Development and go for the full stack side of things. In the few weeks I have been writing code, I have been loving it. In the JavaScript course, I learned fundamental programming concepts in JavaScript by coding my own Role Playing Game. If the only thing that comes out of this is that I can make my own text-based RPG, it is worth it. I do plan on taking my studies and these opportunities seriously. I hope this blog helps others, if not just myself, in the future.

I will be using this platform to track my progress, record what I've learned as a reference for the future, and express my thoughts and feelings about programming. As I said in the beginning, English class was not my favorite, but I did enjoy writing this, and I look forward to blogging. I will do my best to post every two days. I appreciate you all for taking the time to read this. I hope it helps you gain information, inspiration, and motivation. Without further ado, this is Mike's self-taught blog.