Faye Bridge
writes on June 24, 2015
After two years of pursuing a degree in economics, Peter decided to make a big shift and take a basic web design course. Finding the pace of the class too slow, Peter turned to Treehouse to learn in his free time and at his own pace. Soon he found himself far ahead of his peers and feeling confident with the skills he was building. As a result, Peter took a big leap of faith and decided to drop out of college and pursue learning on Treehouse full time. After two months, Peter was able to take on his first client projects and has since landed himself a position as a junior web developer. Peter now has a career he enjoys and is looking forward to a bright and exciting future ahead.
We caught up with Peter to hear more about his learning experience and new career path.
What first drew you to the web industry?
I’ve always been interested in the Internet and how it works. Actually, the first thing that drew me into the world of web development was editing my MySpace page in middle school. I dabbled here and there for years after but never took an interest.
What were you doing when you first joined Treehouse & what encouraged you and your team to learn with us?
When I graduated high school, I decided to major in economics only to find out how much I hated it two years later. I switched majors and started taking some classes in HTML, CSS, and Photoshop Design. I fell in love instantly, but there was one problem: how slow the class was. What took the instructor 45 minutes only took me 5 minutes on Treehouse. I was far ahead of my class just by spending a couple hours a day on Treehouse for a week.
I knew this was something I could use to learn and develop career worthy skills so I took a huge jump and decided to drop out of college and pursue Treehouse as a full-time student. Now I work full time using my programming skills and am continuing to learn with Treehouse.
You recently landed your first Junior Web Developer position. Tell us about the work you’ll be doing now and how your career has evolved since learning with Treehouse.
I recently accepted a Junior Web Developer position for a company out of Denver, Colorado and my primary position will be web development for various websites. A graphic designer will send me a PSD and I will turn that into a functioning website. Absolutely everything about my career has evolved. In two months, I gained a skill that qualified me to start my career. That’s a bit of an evolution.
What are your plans for the future, and what’s up next on your learning path?
My plans for the future are looking bright. Ultimately what I’m going to do is keep on coding and improving my skills. I have a couple of small businesses that I am making websites for and I know that will be a learning experience. I also bought tickets to the 2015 CSS Summit and I’m super excited to see Guil Hernandez talk!
Is there any advice you’d like to share with new students who are aspiring web designers and developers?
Write every idea down. I can’t count how many instances where I’ve been stuck on a bug and it came to me while I was away from my computer. Also, try coding and recreating everything possible. For example, one of my first little challenges was recreating magazine pages using HTML and CSS and this is what taught me about text formats and the box method.
When it comes down to it, the only way you are going to do better is keep on coding.
To read more awesome student success stories, check out the Treehouse Stories Page.
I don’t know if this is a good thing. What does that say about job security if just anyone can spend 2 months learning and start competing for jobs?
Amazing story! One question for Peter though, how much time did you spend on an average day learning?