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Heather conquers a life goal and becomes a Salesforce developer!

October 29, 2014

David’s note: SFDC99’s first success story from a lady and hopefully not the last! Heather, I have many regrets in life that I’ve never had the guts to overcome but I’m going to remember your story next time! Your bravery is nothing short of courageous and I hope it gives many women (and men) out there the push they need to succeed! I wish there were more people like you in the world! YOU ARE AMAZING HEATHER!

Here’s my story:

    Like so many people on this site, I did not come from a coding background although I always wanted to learn. My high school computer science class taught us PowerPoint and typing. I even tried to teach myself on codecademy, but since I was living on a farm, our internet was a whopping 14 kilobytes/s.

    I’d hoped I would be able learn in college, and went to one meeting of an organization that we had on campus that taught students Java. As soon as I walked in I realized I was the only girl. I remember when they made us go around the room and introduce ourselves and everyone was staring at me. I felt so uncomfortable that I wanted to cry. Even though it was a great opportunity, I never went back and I regret it every day.

    I ended up graduating 3 years later with a degree in International Studies (the most practical degree ever) and got a job as an IT Recruiter. That was my first real exposure to IT, they would tell me to find a DBA and I would Google what the heck a DBA is. We even did some Salesforce recruiting! Later, we implemented a Salesforce Applicant Tracking System and I started exploring everything that we could do with it until I self-appointed myself our admin and went for my 201 and 401 certifications. I was so excited every time I found out that Salesforce could do something I didn’t expect it to be able to.

    But I realized very quickly that even though there was so much we could do with point-and-click development, we still needed Apex to get the full benefits of it so I began looking online for resources to learn and eventually found SFDC99. I spent so many nights and weekends pouring over Head First Java and this website and finally, two months ago, I wrote my first real trigger for our org! I’m so happy that I’ve finally accomplished one of my goals that I’ve had since I was young!

    Since then I started a pro-bono project in my free time and have been studying up for my 501 exam. Thanks so much for everything you do, I wish there were more people like you in the world.

Heather Thompson

Read more user-submitted stories or submit your own at SFDC99’s reader success stories page!

8 Comments
Monica Sena
April 6, 2017 @ 2:11 am

awesome Heather!!! very motivating

Reply
Heather
January 22, 2015 @ 5:30 am

Update: I just started my new job this week as a Salesforce developer!

Reply
    David Liu
    January 22, 2015 @ 9:04 am

    CONGRATULATIONS Heather!!!!!!!

    If you ever want to tell the world how you did it, even if its just a snippet, you know how to reach me!

    In any case, WELL DONE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Woohoo!!!

    Reply
Karen Hopson
November 10, 2014 @ 11:07 am

Hi Heather,
Congrats!! I want to send you a thousand Kudos!! When I went to the university and told them I wanted to get a degree in Computer Science, the counselor all but laughed at me (apparently I’m not the stereotype). He made me take an aptitude test to enter the program and so I did. The test came back and although I don’t know what he was looking for in the scoring; he allowed me in because I happened to score highest in the nation for Mechanical Engineering that year.

I have many more stories of prejudice in the workforce for being the only female engineer. I’ve also made many developer friends who respect me as much as I respect them.

I encourage all Girly Geeks to keep going. I commend you on moving forward with your skills and abilities despite the difficulty. Rock On!!

Reply
Miguel
October 30, 2014 @ 11:39 pm

Heather, I’m an MIS major in college and still had very little coding exposure. Visual Basic was all we worked on, so I totally get where you’re coming from. I really like the SFDC99 tutorials, too. Sometimes I have to watch the videos a few times to “get it”, but it eventually sinks in. Best of luck on your future SFDC aspirations.

Reply
Mary Scotton (@rockchick322004)
October 30, 2014 @ 11:11 am

LOVE this story, Heather! Thank you for sharing, and I’m so glad you were able to accomplish your goal! Next step: I’m thinking you pair that International Studies degree with the programming and go travel the world as a consultant…? Just a thought… ;-)

Reply
    Heather
    October 31, 2014 @ 7:41 am

    Mary, I wish!!

    Reply
Stephanie Herrera
October 30, 2014 @ 8:07 am

YaY Heather!! What a great story :) I will be sharing with my Austin Girly Geeks!

Reply

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