Beginning the Journey

I have recently started what I know is called a career pivot. I’m currently working in diesel mechanics and when I look around the shop all I see is middle aged people that are about crippled. I’m just not to exited to turn 35 and not being able to go outside and run around with my kids.

I’m hoping to share this journey with others for 3 reasons:
A) To keep me accountable
B) To write what I’ve learned down
C) And to hopefully show others that it’s not impossible to follow that dream

I’ll give you a little bit more about me in general. I grew up in the northern part of Michigan. A nice little town right on Lake Michigan. I had 2 other sisters that I grew up with. I come from a blended family so I actually have 1 biological sister, 1 adopted sister, 1 half sister, 2 half brothers, 2 step sisters, and 1 step brother. If you weren’t counting that’s 8. I was home schooled from 2nd through 10th grade.

I always was fascinated by computers from about the time I was 7 or 8. We got this “top of the line” Dell desktop computer. I don’t think it had more than 512MB of RAM and 50GB HHD (which we were NEVER going to be able to fill). And thanks to living “out in the boonies”, we had dial-up internet.

In 9th grade I got my first coding course for C+. Then in my senior year of high school I was able to go to a career tech center and study Web and Game Development where we were introduced to some of the core elements to most any programming language. We were able to work with HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. After I finished high school, I went to a small college and started studying Computer Science. Just as I was starting to get to the good stuff, the college switched from quarters to semesters. They rewrote the program and I wasn’t able to use more than half my credits so I just gave up.

Recently I have had this internal push to go out and get what I want in life. I made a motto to always learn something new everyday. I’m pushing myself to make sure I don’t muss the opportunity to do something just because it is hard. I struggle sticking with something and seeing it to the end. So to make sure I do this, I’ve set a date that I have to take my test by and have a plan in place to make sure I do enough everyday to meet that goal. I had to take that large goal and break it down into daily goals otherwise I look at that big goal and think “Wow that’s way too hard to achieve” when in reality it’s not. 

My plan is to take both the CompTIA 220-1001 and the CompTIA 220-1002 in mid October. I’m using the ITProTv course to study. The whole course is 103 hours of video, 28 labs, and 2 practice exams. I have about 8 weeks to study, give or take. I also have my wedding and honeymoon in that time frame. I’ll need to watch about 2 1/2 hours of video everyday. That will give me a few days to do labs also.

This blog is going to serve the purpose of all my note taking. It will make it easy for me to search though my notes and keep them organized. My hope is to watch my video during the day and then every evening to reflect on what I learned. Also, I’m doing it so I can share everything with others.

Thank you for letting me share this journey with all of you!

And now on to studying…

“The way to get started is to quit talking and begin doing.” – Walt Disney