Launchcode

“I like your shirt. Not a lot of people know what that is and what it means, but I do, and I like it”

Somebody said to me when they saw my LaunchCode shirt.

My life would be completely different if not for LaunchCode. Yeah, I might have learned to code, but more likely than not, I would have pursued a different path: if in the business world, I probably would have been some kind of business analyst. I doubt there’s many worlds that exist where I still would have been a teacher: I just get no joy from people doing what I say, and not nearly enough joy from changing an unwilling person’s mind. There’s worlds where I’m a cook again, but not a lot of worlds where I’m both a cook and have time to spend with my family, especially such a wealth of time to spend with our child when she’s so young.

There is nothing else in my life like LaunchCode. Nothing else asked so little of me and gave me so much. Nothing else built me such a solid foundation for a career. Nothing else changed the course of my life so much.

I wonder if the way some people talk about their baptism, or their martial art, or their favorite band, I wonder if those things are to them what LaunchCode is to me.

I’ll write more another time about it, but I’m just so grateful to live in a world where LaunchCode exists, to be lucky enough to have gotten accepted and been able to graduate from it, and to now work in a career built from the seeds LaunchCode planted.