Becoming a modern Renaissance Woman

TIL: my wish to become a programmer stems from wanting to become a renaissance woman in my field.

It’s difficult with all our advances in science to be among the top in many different fields, the same way Laura Bassi did in the 18th century for example. But I think within the field of Software Development it’s (possibly, kind of, for some definition of it) achievable.

Not in the sense that I want to be recognized as the top but I want to understand this field. Like deeply understand.

I already know a great deal about testing and realize that I’m far from knowing it all. I have some awareness of where some of my gaps are. I feel that’s more than I knew when I started out, or a few years ago. Some day I might fill those gaps and probably discover new ones in the process.

I’ve also come to understand and learn about teams and coaching. Here, I’m not as far advanced as I am in testing. It’s an incredibly vast area but barely scraping the surface has given me powerful insights already.

Coming into the world of programming and making (more) sense of how systems programmatically fit together will give me another piece of the puzzle. So far, I’ve been approaching it from the outside perspective. I’ve seen programmers struggle and I’ve helped best I could but I haven’t experienced it first hand. This is of course the most crucial piece of the puzzle since without the act of putting the software together, we’re not doing Software Development.

Not that the software has a raison d’être in itself. If we can solve the problem without software, that’s even better. I just want to contribute when the software is designed to make someone’s life easier. For example, it can be that streaming a movie is easier than going out to rent it or that new entrepreneur can charge for her goods easily.

My best guess is that my journey will take me through a few more different roles within Software Development. Or maybe rather than roles, performing other activities than testing, coding and coaching. It wouldn’t surprise me if I find myself iterating over those activities to deepen my knowledge.

It’s in that sense I see this change of career path as a part of becoming a renaissance woman. Rather than specializing in one or two fields of Software Development, I want to see as many perspectives as I can.

I find myself driven by one main question “how does it all fit together?”