026: Self-Taught Student Talks with Kalalau Cantrell

What you'll learn

  • Why Kal considers learning how to learn one of the most important skills he’s picked up to date
  • What sound engineering is, and what sound engineers do
  • How technical sound engineering skills lend themselves to software engineering
  • Why problem solving in sound engineering is similar to debugging
  • Why knowing your skills, and your talents—and being able to express them to others—is so important
  • How Kal saw that the sound engineer landscape was about to shift… and why he decided to jump ship
  • Why knowing yourself is critical to navigating your career
  • Kal’s advice for anyone coming into coding from a non-technical background
  • Why teaching skills are so important in any industry
  • The resources Kal used while teaching himself to code
  • Why trying different learning approaches and methods is crucial to finding one that speaks to you
  • What makes freeCodecamp “difficult”
  • Why hand-holding can be good when learning certain topics
  • The most surprising—and SCARIEST—thing Kal learned about himself while learning to code
  • How Kal got past the stress of his first hackathon
  • The power of the people who support our career transition (and us!)
  • How Kal is preparing to get his first job

Tweetables

I just love getting to know fellow students from diverse backgrounds, who taught themselves web development. This week’s episode is a Self-Taught Student Talk with fellow self-taught web developer Kalalau Cantrell (or “Kal”, for short).

Kal entered the web development industry from a background in sound engineering, and teaching physics (!). I met him after reading his awesome article on the freeCodeCamp Medium publication, “From Sound Engineer to Software Engineer—Why I’m Learning to Code“.

In our conversation, Kal talks about his educational background in physics and sound engineering, the valuable skills he picked up along the way, and how he’s leveraging his existing skills to power through his web development education.

Show Notes

Kal’s links

freeCodeCamp Medium: “From Sound Engineer to Software Engineer—Why I’m Learning to Code” by Kalalau Cantrell

Kal’s plugs

CSS Grid By Example

FunFunFunction (YouTube)

Kal’s social media

@kalalaucantrell on Twitter

 

 

 

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What you'll learn

  • Why Kal considers learning how to learn one of the most important skills he’s picked up to date
  • What sound engineering is, and what sound engineers do
  • How technical sound engineering skills lend themselves to software engineering
  • Why problem solving in sound engineering is similar to debugging
  • Why knowing your skills, and your talents—and being able to express them to others—is so important
  • How Kal saw that the sound engineer landscape was about to shift… and why he decided to jump ship
  • Why knowing yourself is critical to navigating your career
  • Kal’s advice for anyone coming into coding from a non-technical background
  • Why teaching skills are so important in any industry
  • The resources Kal used while teaching himself to code
  • Why trying different learning approaches and methods is crucial to finding one that speaks to you
  • What makes freeCodecamp “difficult”
  • Why hand-holding can be good when learning certain topics
  • The most surprising—and SCARIEST—thing Kal learned about himself while learning to code
  • How Kal got past the stress of his first hackathon
  • The power of the people who support our career transition (and us!)
  • How Kal is preparing to get his first job

Tweetables

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