Coding is frustrating, of the pull your hair out and bang your head against the door variety. And it’s frustrating like this 80% of the time, especially if you are a beginner like me. Also, it makes your back ache and your neck twinge, and your eyes dry out. To top off this list, coding often gets between me and my sleep--I am definitely not a night owl.

But I love coding. I haven’t yet found anything else that gives me the same rush, stimulation, or reward. 80% of the time, coding is a struggle. But the other successful 20% can’t be described as anything less than magical. It’s addictive. No matter how long I slaved over fixing one tiny itsy bitty bug---a bug that had a glaringly obvious fix that took me hours to find--I feel accomplished and happy in the end. I created something, fixed a bug, solved the problem.

Congrats to Desiree for winning two spots in Flatiron After School in our #WhyICode contest! Although she's been out of high school for a few years, she plans to put the tickets to good use and give them to two students she knows.

So why does Desiree think high schoolers should learn how to program? As she put it, "What truly excites me about entrepreneurship is the same thing that excites me about programming: the freedom to be creative, analyze processes, iterate quickly, and meet amazing people.

There are a few reasons I want to learn to code, the biggest one being I want to make a difference. Computers dominate our lives and using our knowledge, we can use them to solve problems in the world today. I've want to make a difference which is why I thinking learning code is a good tool to have. 

Right now I want to see how I can use code to help the environment especially in terms of sustainability. I'm also interested in learning about information security. Our digital lives are at risk and I'd love to try and keep people save online. 

I just want to use code to solve issues that we face. That's the big reason.

Other reasons include:

I can't stick to just one thing, and I love how computer science can apply to so many fields of interest. Code is a skill I can use for many different pathways I take in life.

 I like how it using both my creative side and my logical side to solve problems. There is no one way to code so their a lot of room to do things your own way, yet it still follows logic that I can understand. 

I want to be a better problem solver. 

Yeah, the money us a perk too :)

Coding is a challenge. Most things come easily to me and thus can start to bore me. Code is never like that. Its hard, and it make me think. As someone who is proud of her intelligence, that is a very good think. I like using my brain.

I'll keep this brief and will let the project speak for myself.

Inspired by Jennifer Dewalt's story where she learned how to code for 180 days, I've decided to learn how to code as I am seeing how technology will have a much bigger role in not just in tech, but in other industries such as health, education, energy, government, economy, architecture, and even design.