I have not done a university course on all the things I have learnt to do with computers. If you want to learn how to do something then the internet is a great tool for finding information to teach yourself. All you need is the interest and motivation to learn.
I have been interested in computers since doing a 6th Form Computer Studies subject in 1986. Members of the computer club were able to take computers home for the weekend and this introduced the family to computer gaming.
At university in 1988 I elevated geekdom to the next level when I joined the university computer club and had adventures with instant messaging in the networked environment and girls were rare in the computer lab realm.
My first experiences with the internet were in 1997 when we got our first home computer. I started out with different chat rooms and Yahoo games but soon became bored with the very short memories of other participants. I then found online women's communities that created web pages for themselves and each other and decorated them with graphic "gifts". I started to learn about HTML, web publishing and creating graphics. I tried out online gaming with Age of Empires. I advanced my knowledge a little further with CSS and a bit of scripting.
The internet is now all grown up and I have shifted away from hand-coding to finding what works best for my needs. I have listed my current online presence.
If you are curious, you can see what I consider to be essential tools.
