I’m currently being trained as a Mechanical Design Engineer at UC Berkeley but I find myself turning more and more to web development. Instead of reviewing my heat transfer book or solving material deformation problems, I turn to a text editor and start hacking away; adding new content to the world wide web. Is it good content you might ask? How many people read or are impacted by anything I create?
Seventeen. At least seventeen people have viewed www.chrisdmccoy.com this week: 15 from California, 1 from Texas another from Virginia. I’ve gone coast-to-coast! And that is only viewers of one of several websites that I manage. In total, over 1000 people view the sites I’ve built (I know this is essentially nothing compared to professional sites) but this regular viewership is part of the rush and being able to collect data so easily using products like Google Analytics is just awesome.
I know it is not a huge following but at least it is non-zero
There is a certain thrill of solving a problem using web technology and I believe it’s because you can have an impact very fast (however small). You can make a website in just a few hours for free–and I’m not even a programmer by training. And clearly people have made some good money mastering these skills. And most recently, I’ve been interviewing with web-based start-ups and they’re willing to consider me because I have some had some real experience. Additionally, my mind is less restricted compared to a CS guy who has been programming a specific way throughout his whole undergraduate career. I’ll have a unique perspective on the problem. At least I hope they consider this as a value.
One company presented a CSS challenge: duplicate a web layout which was given as a picture. I’ve never programmed CSS from scratch. I usually just “borrowed” code from other free-ware sites. But the importance of CSS in addition to the ease of learning new web technologies from the web itself, made me pursue the challenge. Having set web-based programming aside for a little while to focus on my graduate research, I am a little rusty but in 2.5 hours, I was able to finally program a website w/out <tables> and instead used the much preferred <div> objects. Learned something new today–alright!
In other web-development news, I’m pretty excited about my latest web-based distraction: www.race4awareness.org While I’ve got a pro (www.richwinslow.com) doing the main web design work, I’m very excited about the concept and I hope people grab onto this website’s concept.
One of my many hobbies–motorcycle riding–has turned into an addiction to track riding which has morphed into club racing (www.afmracing.org). Being that this is a silly waste of money, I decided to turn it into something positive for the world and we’re using “racing” as a way to raise awareness and financial support for otherwise, undiscussed issues. The first two issues being tackled are: Celiac Disease and Engineering.
I'm racing the 2007 Cupcake Suzuki GSXR 750 in an effort to raise awareness about Celiac Disease and the dietary challenges Celiac's face on a daily basis.
Leveraging my skills from developing www.berkeleythaihouse.com, I was able to get the concept online and people can hopefully now start participating, creating their own, “race4awareness.”
Where did you go mechanical engineering design? Are you still there somewhere? Yes. Actually it is. I still get a similar rush doing mechanical engineering. It just takes a little more effort acquiring the necessary resources (materials, design and analysis software, machine shops, etc.). Motorcycle racing demands those skills very often so I’m happy about that. But why do I stay up late programming but I don’t stay late in the lab? That question still needs an answer.
I think I’ve found a happy medium though: programming microcontrollers like the Arduino! Not only do I get the quick development satisfaction, but I also get to play in the machine shop, make parts, and watch my computer program interact with the tangible world. By merging these two worlds, I think I’ll find my unique skill set and give my future employer a good reason to hire me.
p.s. anyone have any good references about how to effectively use “Custom Fields” and “metadata” in WordPress blogs? Thanks!
