“In new situations, all the trickiest rules are the ones nobody bothers to explain to you. (And the ones you can’t Google.)”
― Rainbow Rowell, Fangirl
Learning a new skill is a life-changing experience. When I look back on my life, I believe I had multiple opportunities to experience such key moments. One of them is VBA programming. Never heard of it? Well, it’s the official coding language for Excel spreadsheets developed by Microsoft. I know that the language has not been updated for more than a decade and is now considered one of the most hated languages among developers’ communities for its outdated syntax. And now Python is gaining popularity not only among developers but also among those who start learning code to automate Excel.
Despite this trend, I still love to use VBA to automate Excel. Granted, Excel is a little outdated, but the language changed my life forever ever since I started coding with it. And here is my little story of how I started coding and eventually changed my career after.
It was 2015. I broke up with my ex-girlfriend. She was an American who fell in love with my country, Japan. But because of her financial situation and family issues, she no longer could be able to stay in Japan and eventually decided to leave the country. We broke up over Skype. Can you believe it? Huh? Can you? I was devastated and hopeless. I don’t know how many times I thought about the idea of following after her all the way to the US and starting a new life there. But how? Living abroad costs not only a lot of money but also requires special skills that can’t be found among locals.
At that time, I didn’t necessarily have any of those requirements to meet immigration requirements. Even though I was in IT, I wasn’t necessarily technologically advanced when it came to my skill set. Also, she was determined and clearly told me the relationship would have never worked in the long term. But still, if there was any chance? All I needed was a sense of hope. Just a glimmer of hope was enough. Even though there weren’t many options I had to get her heart back, there still was something I could at least start improving my skillset to have an ability to live abroad in the future. This notion gave me a glimmer of hope I was craving.
So, where did I start? It was MOS (Microsoft Office Specialist). I know this is not a technologically advanced certification. But the start always should be small, and the goal should be big. Excel, Word, PowerPoint, and Access. I started to improve my basic IT skills by passing MOS certifications one by one. Through the process of learning new skills, my appetite for new skills had me exploring the tech world.
Then came the day. Since I kept reporting to my manager in my previous company about my certifications, he one day told me: “Why don’t you try VBA?”. Until that day, I didn’t even think about learning to code, because it required an extra level of knowledge in technology as well as something I’d never experienced in my life. But it somewhat sounded amusing because it reminded me of my initial reason to start learning tech skills. My dream of living abroad. Coding skill definitely was something I was craving. So, why not?
When I came back home the day he told me about VBA, I googled the language. Visual Basic for Applications. That’s the actual name of the language, and I learned that there actually were (still are) VBA certifications. Having looked up Amazon, I found a good VBA textbook and bought it in a heartbeat.
From that moment on, my programming journey started. When I look back on my life, my encounter with the language changed my life forever. Everything was new to me, but I found myself enjoying coding within the process. One of the crucial reasons I loved coding was because it all logically made sense. Just like building LEGO blocks, those lines of code I wrote perfectly worked together and completed the Excel automation I planned. The very first project I was working on was to build a system to calculate my monthly/yearly spending history, filtering by store or product names. At that moment I saw the whole calculating process that worked perfectly and displayed the calculated result I wanted: not only did I see the potential of the language, but also I could blurry see what I wanted to do with my life. And that satisfaction I felt when my codes worked led me through my path to be a programmer.
When you code, you don’t have to remember everything. All the answers you are looking for are on the Internet. All you need is the googling ability, basic knowledge of the coding language, and an ability to think logically. As I mentioned earlier, the process of coding is very much like building LEGO blocks. Or maybe you could compare it with solving puzzles. Everything has to make sense in the coding world, but it’s very much a fantastic experience. The possibility is immense, and all you need is a decent laptop and a tiny bit of curiosity to explore the computing world.
Anyways, let me get back to my story. Even though I eventually learned the hard way that it was almost impossible to get back together with my ex, I thanked her for giving me the reason to start working towards a new goal: to be a programmer. Eventually, I was certified with two VBA certifications, and the achievements had me explore the fascinating world of other programming languages: Python, Java, Bash Script, and SQL. It didn’t take a long time for me to eventually fell in love with coding, and eventually found a Java development position at the end of 2019. It took three years for me to actually got the job, and my decision re-shaped my career and my life.
It has been almost three years since I started coding professionally. Although there is still so much room for improvement when it comes to my personal growth as a developer, I still and will keep enjoying this endless journey. And the spending tracking system I initially built with VBA became my personal obsession. Every time I personally build a system with Java or its frameworks, I always build a spending tracker. One of the major reasons I love building the system is because I enjoy playing with numbers and databases. When I was a kid, I wouldn’t say I liked math and did everything I could think of to avoid interacting with numbers. But as I grew older, I somewhat started realizing how fun it actually is to interact with numbers because just like programming they all logically make sense! Now that I’m learning algebra all by myself from scratch and I love learning those stuff.
My Java developer position paved the way for exploring the language, and my current obsession is Android programming. Since my first smartphone was an Android device, I’ve been an enthusiastic Nexus/Pixel user. So it was quite natural for me to develop my interest in mobile app development for the OS. Plus, given the fact that I’m enthusiastically following almost everything Google has been doing, I love interacting with Google products: Android, ChromeOS, Google Sheet, Gmail, and many others. Currently, my goal is to be an Android app developer and to do so, I’ve been working on my personal portfolio. I hope I can release it to the Play Store in a few months.
All in all, my tragic breakup with my ex somewhat lead me on the path to be a developer. Life is strange, isn’t it? It all started with VBA, and now I found myself falling in love with Java, Kotlin, and Android. A wise man once said, “To be wealthy, accumulate all those things that money can’t buy”. I think I found one, and I’m still in the process of accumulating it. The goal is not the goal itself, but the process. Keep learning. Keep walking. And keep growing. Have faith in your journey, and let’s enjoy the process, called life.
Let us begin…
