Coding a website from scratch, to me at least, is a lot like running a marathon: I don't do it. The idea seems novel, and a great thing to talk about at a get-together, but the amount of effort required to pull it off is fatiguing to even think about. It's one of those things you keep telling yourself you'll do (one day), and when other people bring it up in conversation, you always reassure yourself with the classic:
"Oh yeah, I've been meaning to do that too! I've just been pretty busy lately, maybe next year :)".
So, in the spirit of this (at best) average metaphor, let me give you some advantages and disadvantages of learning to code a website from scratch, all in relation to running marathons. Because that is totally something we all think about doing all the time.
ADVANTAGES
Why this might not be as masochistic as it seems
So here you are, having a mid-life crisis at 22, because you are about to enter the work force and you feel like everyone, even bio-med majors, are more qualified for your field than you are. So, in a brash panic, you decide to pick up web development to throw on to your resume, and think: how hard can it be? Spoiler alert, the answer is, very. Imagine doing a couch to 5k program, and at the end of the six weeks instead of running a 5k race, you have to run an iron man. Through the desert. Carrying Jimmy Fallon on your back the whole time.
Okay well maybe that is a bit of an exaggeration - it's not impossible. But it does require two fundamental things that are rather precious when you are in college: free time, and ambition. There are a few of you out there who won the genetic lottery, and have vast amounts of both - good for you. For the rest of us, the word ambition and its derivatives like "self-starting" and "work drive" are things we have to cough out forcibly during interviews and networking events.
Teaching yourself a whole new skill, much like running a marathon, is hard! It takes a lot of willpower, time, and dedication. And let's face it: most days, it's going to be the last thing you want to do when you get up out of bed in the morning. Learning three code languages, organic integration of such, and ultimately being efficient at it, is going to be a long process (almost like... a marathon). But, that isn't to say that pulling through with it won't have its payoffs.
If you manage to actually do it without throwing in the towel halfway in and dropping out of school, you are going to be very qualified. I can guarantee you, with my nonexistent expertise, that in an entry level position, especially in one with options to grow, you will be picked over almost any other candidate. It will show off your perseverance, passion for the field, and the most important of all, it will be a total power move. You will have the recruiter wrapped around your finger.
Not only that, but once you finish, you will feel like you own the place. You will question your sanity, perhaps, but you will feel incredibly solid in the industry, and you will have this incredible gateway of opportunity that leads into things that most people take a few years to work up to. So essentially, you will hate yourself for running the marathon, you'll do the mental equivalent of walking around like a penguin and wincing every time you sit down and stand up, but it will be one of the best things you have done for yourself in a while.
DRAWBACKS
Why this actually might be as masochistic as it seems
I'm going to be real with you: it's going to suck. And it's not going to be mild discomfort, no - the more miles you put behind you, the more you are going to want to quit. In the same way your muscles and body scream at you throughout a marathon (I'm assuming), you are going to feel like your sanity is leaking out of your ears as you deal with learning to code. It is very frustrating! There is this model for a learning curve that I really like, that looks something like this:
This is comprehensive, realistic, and definitely achievable. Well, the coding one looks like this:
Yeah, let me reiterate: it is going to suck. Did I say it was going to suck? Because it is. Coding is one of those things that is extremely tedious at first, and there are about a million different ways to do a single thing. If you look up 5 different tutorials for the same action, you are going to end up worse-off than when you started. In the marathon analogy, this would be choosing one of 5 routes to get to the end, which are all equidistant, but involve going mindlessly in circles around a roundabout for a few hours.
With this, obviously, comes an insane time commitment. And that will culminate in rage, frustration, tears, and Ben & Jerry's. Lots of Ben and Jerry's.
To top it all off, as impressive and awesome as it is to be able to code, there's someone better - there always is! If you're the person crawling across the finish line, then the in-house web designer is the elite athlete who ran two more marathons in the time it took you to finish one.
So, learning to build websites is high effort, but mixed reward. Ultimately it makes you more competitive, but it is definitely a long-term investment. Whether you run that race or not is ultimately up to you.
I really enjoyed the interesting way that you presented this information. I thought that you’re displayed photo was really great!
I totally agree with your opening paragraph. Making your own website seems very cool but at the same time it takes more than words to make an idea come true. I also enjoyed the graphs. Lastly I think if you’re not totally in love with something it makes it more difficult do (pretty obvious statement). But if you have a strong passion for something no matter what it is, which ever marathon you choose to run, the training process my be enlightening and perhaps fun.