On this week's episode of the freeCodeCamp podcast, Abbey chats with London-based software engineer Linh about how she left the field of biochemical engineering, taught herself to code, struggled to get her first dev job, and now gets to work at LEGO. Linh moved to England when she was 11 years old. She spoke no English, but quickly learned and settled into her life there. She became fascinated with cosmetics and wanted to learn how to create them, so she decided to study biomedical and biochemical engineering in college - she even got her Master's degree in the subject. But something didn't feel right - she didn't have the passion for it she thought she had. So she looked elsewhere. After briefly considering banking, and teaching for a bit, she stumbled into the world of tech through one of London's many fintech meetups. As she started to learn more and meet more people, she realized she'd found her new passion: coding. So she decided to teach herself to code...and the rest is history. Just kidding - but you'll have to listen to find out what comes next :) In this episode of the podcast, you'll learn all about how Linh taught herself to code, how she persevered through a long job search and got her first (and second and third) dev job, what exciting projects she's working on at LEGO, and how she'd advise anyone wanting to break into tech to go about it. Find Linh on Twitter here: https://twitter.com/pinglinh

On this week's episode of the freeCodeCamp podcast, Abbey chats with developer and wearer of many hats Princiya about how she changed careers, moved to Berlin, and worked her way up to a lead role. Princiya grew up in India and studied computer science in school - like many of her family members and friends. She even taught some computer science and web development classes at the university level, but missed coding. So she decided to get back into it. After working at a startup and starting to speak at conferences, Princiya took a trip to Berlin that changed her life. The community was welcoming, she made some great connections, and ended up applying to and getting a job there soon after. Princiya now works at a startup in Berlin where she's also in charge of the recruitment process. She's a maintainer at Firefox Dev Tools, a Mozilla Tech Speaker, and an active and enthusiastic mentor. She attends many local meetups in her community and strongly believes in giving back to the groups that helped her get her start in her new city. In this episode, Princiya shares how she worked her way up to a lead role, why she believes the hiring process needs to change - and how she wants to change it - and how she's building healthy and productive relationships within her team and organization. She also discusses why she loves being a mentor, how communities can help young developers, and why she believes in the therapeutic power of doing the dishes - among many other things. When she's not helping her team work better together or working on her latest conference talk, she loves to cook and explore Berlin's food scene.     Connect with Princiya on Twitter here: https://twitter.com/princi_ya  

On this week's episode of the freeCodeCamp podcast, Abbey chats with front-end developer Joe Previte who lives and works in Arizona. Joe shares the story of how he made the tough decision to leave grad school, how he discovered coding, and how he stays motivated and continues to learn.

CS50 is the most popular course at Harvard, and hundreds of thousands of people have taken the free online version of the course as well. We recently posted the lectures for the course on freeCodeCamp's YouTube channel - including the CS50 game development course - all free and commercial-free. During this interview, David Malan and Colton Ogden talk about how they got into technology. They share tips for how to effectively learn computer science, and some advice for teachers and community leaders as well. Colton shares one of his favorite game development hacks, and David tell us the story behind the CS50 catchphrase: "this is CS50" Follow CS50 on Twitter: https://twitter.com/cs50 Subscribe to the CS50 podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/cs50-podcast/id1459708246 Test out CS50's Integrated Development Environment: https://ide.cs50.io/ And CS50's Sandbox: https://sandbox.cs50.io/ The article Colton mentions about Resident Evil 2 on N64 (PDF): https://twvideo01.ubm-us.net/o1/vault/GD_Mag_Archives/GDM_September_2000.pdf The Steve Ballmer CS50 guest lecture: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7lhlKF6MECs And Steve Ballmer's sales pitch of CS50 itself: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=El2mr5aS8y0 Fun fact: Brian Kernighan, whom David mentions as the CS50 teacher who preceded him, is also the co-creator of the C programming language. He's even has his own card in freeCodeCamp Programmer Playing Cards: https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/introducing-programmer-playing-cards-d3eeeffe9a11/

In this week's episode of the freeCodeCamp podcast, Abbey chats with Greek developer and designer Eleftheria Batsou about her passion for creating content and how she balances work, school, travel, and personal time. Eleftheria moved around a lot when she was young, but settled in Thessaloniki in northern Greece as a teenager. When she had to decide which track to take in school, she picked technology, science, and math. It turned out to be a good decision! After bouncing around a bit and completing some internships, Eleftheria found a place that suited her. She learned to code by supplementing her education with free online resources (like freeCodeCamp!), leveled up her skills by completing numerous challenges like #100DaysofCode, and realized she had a passion for design as well as front-end development. Today, she works as a developer, she's getting her Master's degree in design, she attends numerous conferences throughout Europe - and speaks at many of them - and she has a growing YouTube channel. She also has a blog where she shares all kinds of tips, tutorials, and bits of knowledge for beginning developers. When she's not busy juggling her many tasks, she likes to workout to clear her head and hang out with her friends.   Find Eleftheria on Twitter: https://twitter.com/BatsouElef Visit her website here: eleftheriabatsou.com

On this week's episode of the freeCodeCamp podcast, Abbey chats with self-taught developer Rick West who lives and works in the UK. Rick shares how he went from owning his own successful HVAC business to stumbling upon coding and slowly falling in love with tech. Even though Rick's plumbing business was booming, he told himself that, by the time he was 30, he wanted to start another career. And he ended up doing just that. After meeting a couple developers through various contracts, he became fascinated with coding. When he had a break between jobs, he started teaching himself the basics. Not long thereafter, Rick emailed some tech companies and found one that would take a chance on a very junior, very inexperienced developer - and the rest is history. He has just started a new job - as well as a Software Engineering degree - and he's a self-professed constant learner. When he's not studying or coding, Rick enjoys hanging out with his family and leading a relatively quiet life. In this episode, you'll hear all about how Rick made the big career transition and why. We discuss how his life is different now, what it's like to be enrolled in a degree program while working full time, and how he prioritizes his time - among many other things. Find Rick on Twitter here: https://twitter.com/rick_west8  

Madison Kanna, a self-taught full-stack developer at Mediavine, shares her inspiring journey from homeschooling to tech. She discusses the challenges of remote work and balances productivity with flexibility. Madison delves into overcoming imposter syndrome and emphasizes the importance of positive thinking in learning. She highlights the value of personalized learning and curiosity-driven coding education. Additionally, she advocates for community support and mentorship, showcasing how setbacks can transform into growth opportunities, especially for women in tech.

In this week's episode, Abbey chats with artist and game dev Angela He who's a college student at Stanford University. Angela creates beautiful digital art and develops games that speak to emotional issues - and she's almost completely self-taught. Angela grew up in a wealthy suburb of Washington, D.C., and started studying art at the tender age of 3 (after her parents found her drawing on the walls of their home). From there, she has worked with and learned about all different kinds of art, and has taught herself much of what she knows. As she grew older, she got into game development and started figuring out what sort of games - and art - her peers and the general public might like. When she came to Stanford to start university, she continued to explore new tech and expand her skills. Now, Angela is launching a clothing and accessories line inspired by her art while going to school and landing internships at companies like Microsoft and Niantic. She loves exploring the Bay Area with her friends, enjoys shopping for house plants, and eventually wants to write an anime, among many other things. You can find Angela on twitter here: https://twitter.com/zephybite You can check out her website here.

In this episode of the freeCodeCamp podcast, Abbey chats with developer advocate Alejandra Olvera-Novack about how she broke free from her restrictive cult upbringing, moved to the United States, and taught herself how to code. Alejandra was raised without technology, without formal schooling, and in an extremely conservative environment. When she was in her late teens, she left her village and moved to Florida.  After a couple years of googling everything under the sun to catch up on the world's events, and trying to attend college, she ran out of money. Since she was alone - having cut all ties with her family - she took a leap of faith, moved to Seattle, WA, and started looking for work. She worked odd jobs for a while, but quickly realized she'd need something more to survive and thrive. So she started to learn about HTML and CSS, something she never thought she could do. Fast-forward a couple years later, and she was working her way up to a job at Amazon Web Services. Today, Alejandra works with robots, helps developers be as happy and productive as possible at AWS, and runs the non-profit she founded that teaches women, minorities, and disabled how to code for free. She manages her anxiety and PTSD with the help of a service dog and some really great mentors and friends, and she still can hardly believe she's living her dream. Find Alejandra on Twitter here: https://twitter.com/QuetzalliAle Visit her website here: https://alejandraquetzalli.com/ Check out SheCodesNow, Alejandra's non-profit here: https://twitter.com/shecodesnow Find Abbey on Twitter here: https://twitter.com/abbeyrenn

Saron on Twitter: https://twitter.com/saronyitbarek Quincy on Twitter: https://twitter.com/ossia Get tickets to Codeland in NYC on July 22, 2019: http://codelandconf.com Quincy's review of his Codeland experience: https://medium.freecodecamp.org/5f01cadf0a42 In this week's podcast, Quincy interviews Saron about her childhood, and her winding path into tech as an adult. Saron moved from Ethiopia to the US as a child. Her parents had high standards for her academics, and they would even make up extra homework for her each night. After studying liberal arts, Saron worked in science journalism. Eventually she decided to learn to code. After some self-study, she attended a coding bootcamp. From there, she got her start as a developer at ThoughtBot, and then worked at Microsoft. Saron founded CodeNewbie in 2014 and started hosting Twitter chats for people who were interested in learning to code. Then she launched the CodeNewbie podcast, which now has more than 200 interviews with developers around the world. Even though Saron is extremely productive, this productivity doesn't come easy. She talks about was recently diagnosed with Bipolar Disorder and General Anxiety Disorder, and she has adapted to her situation by being extremely methodical about how she invests her time and energy. Enjoy the interview, and be sure to subscribe to both the CodeNewbie podcast and the freeCodeCamp podcast for new interviews each week.