My family always placed a high value on education. I got a good one. In 1984 I didn't know anything about computers, most people in Greece didn't know anything about computers and confused them with calculators. Everyone I knew was telling me to become a chemical engineer, so I was leaning in that direction.
But when I came to the US., Boston University didn't offer a chemical engineering program. In my misfortune I was lucky, because I decided to study computer engineering.
The first real program I wrote was a postfix calculator for a freshman Pascal course. I spent my first summer learning Assembler, while working as a student operator filing output at VPS/VM.
I loved to code, but having my own computer was difficult at the time. I used the university's servers, with limited access, a few hours per week. In 1988 when I graduated, I got my first two computers. I got the best of both worlds: a Mac SE as a gift, and a brand new PC i386 which I found in the hotel parking lot where I worked as an attendant for the summer.
Learning to code changed my life in so many ways. Mostly it taught me how to think, how to organize a thoughts and how approach solutions.
When I read about initiatives like Code.org, TEALS, Codeclub.co.uk I get excited. The digital revolution is only getting started and we need more people that understand how to code. Not just to imagine future innovations in technology, but to come up with solutions to the world's important problems.
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