CommunityMeet Adam, a Professional Classical Musician and Web Developer

Throughout his life, Adam has had a passion for classical music and a love of technology. At a young age, he chose to focus his education on music but continued to satisfy his tech interests. It wasn’t until Adam was pursuing a master’s degree in the classical violin that he set the goal of learning to code with Treehouse. With only basic coding knowledge, Adam dove into front end web development, where he soon found a parallel with one of his favorite aspects of composing music: the ability to create and shape something from nothing. After a few months, Adam was confident enough to take on his first clients and shortly after landed a job as an IT manager. Today, Adam is able to fulfill both his passions with a career as a professional classical musician and as a full-time developer.

We asked Adam to share his inspiring story and experience with us.

I am a 26-years-old dane and all my life I’ve absolutely loved technology. When I was 10-years-old my mother bought our first computer. I’ll never forget the extraordinary feeling of pushing the start button and actually seeing something come to life on the screen.

I was the type of boy who always questioned how things work. I remember looking at the Explorer application buried in the system folders of Windows 98 and thinking I wonder what’d happen if I delete this? The result was a visit by a repairman, who I had my first real “geek experience” with watching him format a hard drive and install Windows. That was the beginning of my interest in computers.

I’ve also always been deeply involved with classical music, which became my primary path through my years of education. I now have a master’s degree in classical violin from the Danish National Academy of Music. So essentially I am a musician with the twist of also being a programmer. All the years I’ve been practicing for hours a day on my violin, I also read thousands of articles on the latest web development news and tried to apply those techniques and add them to my skill set.

[Tweet “Essentially I am a musician with the twist of also being a programmer.” – Adam Hansen”]

When I first heard about Treehouse I was studying at the Music Academy. I had very limited knowledge of HTML & CSS and didn’t even know there was a difference between Java and Javascript! I started out on the Front End Web Development Track. One of the things that can be really difficult to comprehend as a “newbie” in development is the vast number of tools, concepts and ways of thinking you need to become familiar with. Treehouse has really nailed conveying information in an understandable way. I quickly picked up complicated concepts like functions and arrays, which every good developer needs to understand before they can commit quality code to the world of agile development.

One of the things that can be really difficult to comprehend as a “newbie” in development is the vast number of tools, concepts and ways of thinking you need to become familiar with. Treehouse has really nailed conveying information in an understandable way.

Since embarking on my coding journey I’ve completed several Treehouse courses, which have enriched not only my repertoire of programming languages but also my daily life. I now use awesome concepts like SCRUM to organize and plan ahead and services like Trello and Github to take my workflow to a new level. All this great knowledge also had the side effect of boosting my self-confidence enough to start my own business.

All this great knowledge also had the side effect of boosting my self-confidence enough to start my own business.

Through my company Adamino, I started building websites for small business owners. One client was a research group called the Sexual & Reproductive Health Working Group that study and help women in Africa. Building their website meant I got to practice my coding skills and also feel awesome about building a valuable tool that would be used to help people in need.

I landed my current job as an IT manager due to the incredible motivation I received from the great teachers at Treehouse and the awesome Treehouse community. To my knowledge the people I competed with for this position were both competent and experienced in the field. However, landing the job doesn’t always come down to how much experience you have, but more the fact that you’re simply the right match for a company and its team.

Like with classical music – which has hundreds of years of development behind it – you need to keep an open mind to other ways of achieving a goal. With programming, you’re definitely going to get stressed when there’s something you don’t fully understand. But even when nothing seems to work and you can’t find an error, keep your cool and remember you’re doing great work.

I’ve composed classical music for a string quartet and have to say that the feeling of creating something and being able to shape it the way you want to is one of the coolest feelings you’ll ever experience. The very same goes for programming. Don’t have a personal website with a great portfolio? Built it. Don’t really like the way your todo app is working? Create one yourself.

The most important advice I have for new people getting into the wonderful world of programming is to be curious and patient.

My warmest thanks to the Treehouse teachers. Without the incredible work they do, I wouldn’t have advanced to a level where I can now both enjoy the benefits of working as a professional musician and challenging myself on a daily basis as a programmer.

[Tweet “The most important advice for people getting into the world of programming is to be curious & patient.”]

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