1. Can you tell a bit about yourself for the people who don’t know you? I’m a freelance front-end developer, writer and speaker from Lebanon. I have a BS in Computer Sciences that I got from the Lebanese University in Beirut, and have been working as a freelance developer since 2013. I love writing and teaching and have always enjoyed breaking down complex topics into simple, digestible ideas (I used to do it a lot in school and even in college to help my friends understand certain subjects), so I combined both passions into writing articles and tutorials on front-end development. This led, after a while, to speaking at conferences and giving workshops on the same topics I write about—again, the reason being that I love doing this. I’m also a bird person (I raised more than a dozen throughout my life ^^), not very fond of cats, and I’m a tea drinker who has never tasted coffee in her life.

2. What was your first encounter with HTML/CSS/JS and what did you like so much about it? My first encounter with HTML was in eighth grade, 15 years ago. I took a Computer class and among many things my teacher taught us was HTML. We learned the basic tags like '<p>', '<html>', '<body>', '<img>'s that were mostly laid out into '<table>'s and using '<font>'(!). The class was so basic that we never even learned what a '<div>' was. For reasons I don’t know, HTML and I just clicked! It felt like I was speaking some sort of native language that my brain felt extremely comfortable with. I found myself writing and creating a small web page at home even when I wasn’t asked to. I really enjoyed writing HTML. But as I finished the eighth grade I took no other classes until I got to the university, so that was a few years I spent without touching code. In university, we also took basic classes in HTML, CSS and JavaScript, among other classes like PHP and My SQL, Java, etc. I never attended the front-end development classes. I used to skip a lot of classes. (I’m not proud of that.) I was introduced to CSS and JavaScript about a year and a half after graduation, when I started getting into web development.

3. What made you decide to study computer sciences? Unlike many other designer and developer stories who knew they were in love with design and computers and therefore decided to study those majors in college, my decision to study Computer Sciences had nothing to do with that. As a matter of fact, one of the reasons I skipped so many classes was that I did not really want to study CS and I was really close to switching majors more than once. I decided to study CS after having exhausted all other options. My parents weren’t particularly rich and there weren’t many universities that they could afford to get me in to. So my options were filtered first by which uni I got to study in, uni location, years it took to get a degree per major, and a few other criteria had to be taken into account. I finally, reluctantly, chose Computer Sciences. During my first year in uni I wanted to switch to a Physics major. The second year I was about to switch to Architecture, until one day something (good) happened that led me to decided to continue my CS studies. And so I did. In short: me getting into Computer Sciences was not particularly planned or expected. It just happened, and now I’m thankful that God kept me on that road back then (by introducing that “good incident” into my life), otherwise I wouldn’t be here now.

4. What were your plans after graduating? I didn’t have any particular plans. When you study a major you’re not feeing very passionate about, you tend to not make a lot of plans for post-graduation. :)) I frankly thought I would get back to college at some point to study another major I liked—which is something I still think about doing even today, because I love learning and the only plan I ever made for my future was to never stop learning. Now that I’m in a field that requires me to do just that, I couldn’t be any happier. ♥ Even my work as a web developer came unexpectedly and was unplanned and unthought of. After a year and a half not knowing what to do after graduation, a close friend of mine suggested that I “have a look” at web development, knowing how much I enjoyed HTML back in school. I decided to give it a shot. It was my friend introduced me to CSS and JavaScript, and taught me the basics from scratch. I started getting more interested and Googling answers to many questions I had, until I got hooked. A little less than a year later, I started writing articles, and decided to continue down this path and work as a web developer.

5. How does your bachelor in computer sciences contribute in your daily activities? It almost doesn’t. 95% of what I know in the web development field today is self-taught. The only university takeaway I can think of is thinking as a programmer. For example, the Java classes I took in college contributed a lot to my understanding of JavaScript today, even though they are very different, but the basic programming methodologies are the same. Java was one of the very few classes I enjoyed and attended back then. I also loved Assembly language classes, and it was classes like those that built a—albeit thin—basis for working with programming concepts today.

6. On which activities/hobbies do you like to spend your time when you’re not working? This is a tough one and I smiled when I read the question. The thing is: web development is also my hobby. When I’m not working, I’m either reading about it (articles that I want to follow up with), tweaking my website (which is never finished), cleaning up my desktop, drive, bookmarks, etc. and doing “maintenance” in preparation for upcoming work. So, yeah, not really a time away from work—as you can see. This is something I need to work on and change because it is definitely not good for my overall health. That said, when I really need to turn the laptop off and rest my eyes, I like watching movies, exercising, and looking up new healthy smoothie recipes to try out. I also got a watercolor kit a while back in hopes that I’d get back to drawing/painting at some point.