by lucas johnston

通过卢卡斯·约翰斯顿

科技与我：在数字时代成长 (Technology and me: growing up in the digital age)

Working for Starling Bank as a Software Engineer at 17 years of age, I’ve realized that I have the unique ability to make any of my colleagues feel very old, very quickly.

我在Starling Bank担任17岁的软件工程师时，已经意识到自己具有使我的任何同事都非常快地变老的独特能力。

In fact, just a few days ago, a few of us were having lunch when somebody brought up the subject of being in secondary school—and I happily chimed in and mentioned that I just did my GCSEs last year! I was met with a resounding message to never, ever say anything like that, ever again.

实际上，就在几天前，我们中的一些人正在吃午餐，当时有人提起了中学的话题。我高兴地插话，提到我去年才参加我的GCSE！ 我听到了一个深刻的信息，那就是永远不要再这样说了。

As a child, I grew up surrounded by technology. I can’t remember a time without the World Wide Web being a few clicks away, because I’ve never existed in a time when it hasn’t been. Believe it or not, Google AdWords and I are pretty much the same age. The Sims is eight months older than I am. Windows ME is a little under 4 months older than, well, ME. Scary, huh?

小时候，我在技术的熏陶下长大。 我不记得有几次没有点击一下万维网，因为我从未在没有的时候出现过。 信不信由你，我和Google AdWords的年龄差不多。 模拟人生比我大八个月。 Windows ME比ME大4个月。 吓人吧？

Technology was growing up at the same time as I was growing up.

技术与我成长的同时成长。

Each year I’d grow a little bigger.So would the latest laptop.

每年我都会变得更大。 最新的笔记本电脑也是如此。

Each year I’d grow a little smarter.So would the latest smartphone.

每年我都会变得更加聪明。 最新的智能手机也是如此。

Each year I’d grow a little faster.So would the latest processor.

每年我都会增长得更快。 最新的处理器也是如此。

This piqued my curiosity — I was always interested to learn about these weird, magical machines and how they worked. This was obvious from an early age (well, according to my mum at least). I’d have a field day whenever I got my hands on a computer. I would go through each application to see what I could make, to see what would happen when I pressed this button, to see what would happen when I entered that key.

这激起了我的好奇心-我一直很想了解这些奇怪的，神奇的机器以及它们的工作方式。 从很小的时候就很明显( 至少，据我妈妈说)。 每当我把手放在计算机上时，我都会有一个野外活动。 我将遍历每个应用程序以查看可以做什么，查看按此按钮时会发生什么，以及输入该键时会发生什么。

Before I knew it, my dad was controlling his phone with his fingers, my mum was driving in the car with a device screaming “Make a U-Turn where possible,” my sister was listening to her tunes on this tiny black box with a screen, and my friends were racing me in Mario Kart on our DS Lites with this WFC thing that none of us really understood.

在不知不觉中，我父亲正在用手指控制手机，妈妈正在开车时用设备喊着“尽可能地掉头”，姐姐在一个小小的黑匣子上听着她的音乐。屏幕上，我的朋友在我们的DS Lites上用Mario Kart赛车赛车，这是我们没人真正了解的WFC。

I have a quote on my pinboard that defines what I want to do with my life — a quote that reminds me to stop thinking ahead, and to stay in the here and now.

我在记事板上有一个报价，它定义了我想要做的事-提醒我停止前进的思维，而留在现在和现在。

“The best way to predict the future is to invent it.” — Alan Kay

“预测未来的最佳方法是发明它。” —艾伦·凯

我的电脑历史 (My history with computers)

I grew up with an eMac, playing Marble Blast Gold and attempting to download movies from this cool app I heard about called “Frostwire” (the key word in that sentence is “attempt”). Then one day my dad brought home an iMac from the Apple Store.

我在eMac上长大，玩的是Marble Blast Gold，并尝试从这个我听说过的很酷的应用程序中下载电影“ Frostwire”(该句子中的关键词是“ attatt”)。 有一天，我父亲从苹果商店带了一台iMac。

Honestly, I can’t think of a single tangible moment in my life when I’ve ever been more excited about anything than when 9-year old me saw that computer on our desk for the very first time.

老实说，我无法想像自己一生中的任何时刻，比起9岁的我第一次在办公桌上看到那台计算机时，我对任何事情都更加兴奋。

I don’t think there are two computers on this earth that have been abused more than my old eMac and iMac have. See, in the pursuit of exploration and discovery, I may have downloaded a few viruses onto them.

我认为地球上没有两台计算机比我的旧eMac和iMac受到更多的滥用。 看，在探索和发现中，我可能已经将一些病毒下载到了它们上。

Well, I say a few…

好吧，我说几句...

Okay yes, I admit I may have scared myself senseless multiple times over downloading malware and spyware and god knows what other malicious code onto those computers. But over time, I slowly became more cyber-smart. I learned what things were “good to click on” and what things were not. It was effectively trial and error.

好吧，是的，我承认我可能因为下载恶意软件和间谍软件而无数次害怕自己，而上帝知道这些计算机上还有其他恶意代码。 但是随着时间的流逝，我逐渐变得更加网络智能。 我了解了什么东西“可以点击”，什么东西不是。 这实际上是反复试验。

That’s pretty much how I learned everything I now know about computers.

这几乎就是我学到的关于计算机的一切知识。

Trial and error.

反复试验。

For example, when I was 7 years old, I was on a website (I believe it was the BBC homepage) when I decided to click “Save As” in Safari, just to see what it would do. Unsurprisingly, it loaded up a slightly dodgier-looking version of the site that I saw earlier.

例如，当我7岁那年，我决定在Safari中单击“另存为”时，只是在一个网站上(我相信它是BBC主页)，以查看它会做什么。 毫不奇怪，它加载了我之前看到的该站点的外观看起来比较简洁。

I was curious, and I decided to open it in a word processor to see what would happen. To my surprise, it opened up this weird text file with some words I understood, some words I didn’t, and these weird <> signs everywhere.

我很好奇，我决定在文字处理器中打开它，看看会发生什么。 令我惊讶的是，它打开了这个奇怪的文本文件，其中包含一些我理解的单词，一些我没有理解的单词以及到处都是这些奇怪的<>符号。

One of the words was “black,” so I changed it to “red” to see what would happen. I saved the file and opened it in Safari again, and this time an element on the page had turned red.

其中一个词是“黑色”，因此我将其更改为“红色”以了解会发生什么。 我保存了文件，然后再次在Safari中打开了文件，这一次页面上的元素变成了红色。

Little did I know, this was the pivotal moment in my ventures into coding.

我几乎不知道，这是我从事编码工作的关键时刻。

成为数字领导者并更深入地研究技术 (Becoming a Digital Leader and digging deeper into tech)

Through getting my first Raspberry Pi in 2010, I started learning more about Python. And thanks to sites like Codecademy (and in part to the British computing GCSE syllabus), I started developing my skills in HTML, CSS, JavaScript, jQuery, and Python. I even started developing websites for some local businesses to earn a little bit of pocket money for myself!

通过2010年获得第一台Raspberry Pi，我开始学习有关Python的更多信息。 多亏了Codecademy之类的网站(部分归功于英国的GCSE教学大纲)，我才开始开发HTML，CSS，JavaScript，jQuery和Python的技能。 我什至开始为一些当地企业开发网站 ，为自己赚点零花钱！

At school, I really got stuck in the computing department. Two of my teachers — Mr. McKenna and Miss Harding, as I used to call them — led the department, and they taught me a lot. I have to thank both of them, as well as Mr. Ababio (my first Tutor / IT Teacher), for encouraging and inspiring me throughout Secondary School — especially considering how irritating I know I was as an 11-year-old boy!

在学校里，我真的被计算机部门困住了。 我的两个老师-麦肯纳先生和我以前叫他们的哈丁小姐-领导了系，他们教了我很多东西。 我必须感谢他们俩，以及阿巴比奥先生(我的第一位辅导老师/ IT老师)在整个中学期间一直在鼓励和启发我-特别是考虑到我知道自己11岁的男孩有多恼怒！

In 2013, I became a “Digital Leader” for my school under Ben Rouse. Digital Leaders are effectively students who are EduTech ambassadors. We try to promote the use of technology in the classroom and advise teachers and administrators how it can be improved to enhance education.

2013年，我成为Ben Rouse领导的学校的“数字领导者”。 数字领导者实际上是作为EduTech大使的学生。 我们尝试在教室中推广技术的使用，并建议教师和管理人员如何改进技术以增强教育水平。

As part of that, I was invited to the 2015 BETT conference to talk on the Google stand with a few other Digital Leaders from my school, primarily on how we’d integrated tech in the classroom.

作为其中的一部分，我受邀参加了2015年BETT会议，与我学校的其他一些数字领导者在Google展台上进行了演讲，主要是关于如何将技术集成到课堂中。

I kept in touch with the folk at Google after the talk, and became an ambassador for their “Apps for Education” — which I now realize was my first experience attempting to network and interacting with a tech company.

演讲结束后，我与Google的人们保持了联系，并成为他们的“教育应用程序”的大使-我现在意识到这是我第一次尝试与高科技公司建立网络并进行互动。

A couple years later, when reading some tech blog, I stumbled across this post about a modular smartwatch — it was a bit like Google’s Project Ara, but on your wrist, and it fascinated me.

几年后，当我阅读某个技术博客时，我偶然发现了有关模块化智能手表的文章-有点像Google的Project Ara，但在您的手腕上，它让我着迷。

The way I saw it, software was only limited by the hardware it was running on. So, if you could remove some of the primary limitations of that hardware, you’d be opening yourself up to the virtually limitless possibilities of software. That’s why I really got invested in modular tech.

以我的看法，软件仅受其运行硬件的限制。 因此，如果您可以消除该硬件的一些主要限制，那么您将可以使用几乎无限的软件。 这就是为什么我真正投资模块化技术的原因。

This keen interest ultimately led to me getting the e-mail of the CEO of BLOCKS, and asking him whether I could do a week of work experience with the company.

这种强烈的兴趣最终导致我收到了BLOCKS首席执行官的电子邮件，并问他是否可以在公司工作一周。

To my surprise, he said yes.

令我惊讶的是，他说是的。

I got to meet the whole BLOCKS team at their base at Imperial College London, learned what they all did and how the technology worked, and really got to know the product well.

我在伦敦帝国学院的基地与整个BLOCKS团队进行了会面，了解了他们的全部工作以及该技术的工作原理，并真正了解了该产品。

When that week of work experience drew to a close, the CEO and Product Director asked me if I wanted to stay on and turn my work into a summer internship. I jumped at the chance, and at some point that internship turned into a job, making me a part-time Software Engineer for BLOCKS at Imperial College London, in between my secondary school studies.

当那一周的工作经验告一段落时，首席执行官和产品总监问我是否要继续工作并将我的工作转变为暑期实习。 我抓住了这个机会，在某个时候实习变成了一份工作，这使我成为了位于伦敦帝国理工学院的BLOCKS的兼职软件工程师，介于我的中学学习之间。

I gained a lot from BLOCKS — I advanced my understanding of Java (Platform), Java (Android), and got to master my web development skills in native HTML5 /CSS3, JavaScript (ES5), and jQuery.

我从BLOCKS中学到了很多—我加深了对Java(平台)，Java(Android)的理解，并掌握了本机HTML5 / CSS3，JavaScript(ES5)和jQuery的Web开发技能。

麻烦在家 (Trouble at home)

This next section is a bit harder for me to write about, but I think it’s important for me to talk about my background. I’m very grateful to be in the position that I am today, but by no means was it easy to get here.

下一节对我来说很难写，但是我认为谈论背景非常重要。 我很高兴能担任今天的职务，但要到达这里绝非易事。

I fully recognize that I have a lot of privilege, and count myself lucky to have had the opportunities I’ve been presented with. I grew up on the border between south west London and Surrey, in a relatively middle-class family, with a mother, father, and two siblings.

我完全认识到我有很多特权，并且很高兴有机会与我一起学习。 我在伦敦西南部和萨里的交界处长大，一个相对中产的家庭，有一个母亲，父亲和两个兄弟姐妹。

That’s already more than a lot of kids get.

这已经超过了很多孩子的能力。

My dad was a Civil Engineer. When I was little, he often traveled around the world for business, but stayed in London as a consultant for the majority of my life.

我父亲是一名土木工程师。 在我小的时候，他经常环游世界，但在我一生的大部分时间都留在伦敦担任顾问。

On the other hand, my mother was a stay-at-home mum for most of my life before deciding to go into nursing and working for the NHS.

另一方面，我的母亲一生中一直是全职妈妈，然后决定去护理和为NHS工作。

Unfortunately though, we weren’t a happy family. We had problems. A lot of them.

但是不幸的是，我们不是一个幸福的家庭。 我们遇到了问题。 很多。

Generally, home was not a good place for me.

通常， 家对我而言不是一个好地方。

Home was never easy.Home was never “home.”

家从来都不是一件容易的事。 家从来都不是“家”。

When secondary school started, everything began to build up — home, school, sexuality, exams, and social media were all massive stresses, and all put a strain on my wellbeing.

中学开学后，一切开始积淀—家庭，学校，性，考试和社交媒体都是巨大的压力，所有这些都给我的生活带来压力。

For me, home led to quite a few mental health issues, which severely impacted both my health and my performance in school.

对我来说， 家庭导致了很多心理健康问题，严重影响了我的健康和在学校的表现。

I remember a point in my life where I quite literally thought I wouldn’t be around in a few months time.

我记得我生命中的某个时刻，我确实以为自己几个月后就不会在身边了。

But I got help, and over time, I got better.

但是我得到了帮助，随着时间的推移，我变得更好了。

My GCSEs weren’t exactly great though. They weren’t terrible, but I’d missed a lot of school.

我的GCSE并不是很好 。 他们并不可怕，但是我错过了很多学校。

When it came to sixth form, I wasn’t allowed to do the A-Levels I wanted to do because I didn’t meet the entry requirements — I was stuck with poor choices. Any chance of me getting into an Oxbridge or Russell Group university had gone.

当进入第六级时，我被禁止参加我想做的A级考试，因为我不符合入学要求-我陷入了错误的选择。 我进入牛津桥大学或罗素集团大学的任何机会都没有了。

The standard school system just didn’t work in my favor anymore.

标准的学校系统不再对我有利。

So, a few months in, I started seriously contemplating what I was doing with my life. Home was better than ever before, but was still not a good place for me mentally. I knew it wouldn’t be healthy for me to stay at home for much longer.

因此，几个月后，我开始认真考虑自己的生活。 家比以往任何时候都更好，但从精神上来说，这对我来说仍然不是一个好地方。 我知道我待在家里更长的时间是不健康的。

Then there was sixth form — I wasn’t enjoying it, and I was going to spend the next 2 years doing mediocre A-Levels to maybeget into a mediocre university and maybe land a junior engineering role by the time I was 23 (and in £60,000 of student debt).

然后是第六种形式-我不喜欢它，我打算在接下来的两年里做平庸的A级课程， 也许 进入一所中等水平的大学， 可能在我23岁时就获得了初级工程职位(还有60,000英镑的学生债务)。

Something had to change.

某些事情不得不改变。

I knew there had to be another way to do things. I just had to find it.

我知道必须有另一种做事的方式。 我只需要找到它。

So, I made the decision to start looking for other options. I decided I wanted to get an engineering role (so I could develop my skills and do what I love), move out (so I could create a happy home of my own), and generally become an independent young person.

因此，我决定开始寻找其他选择。 我决定自己想担任工程职位(这样我就可以发展自己的技能并做自己喜欢的事情)，搬出去(这样我就可以创建一个自己的幸福的家)，并通常成为一个独立的年轻人。

I brushed up my CV, smartened up my LinkedIn profile, and started applying for jobs and apprenticeships.

我重新整理了简历，弄清了自己的LinkedIn个人资料，然后开始申请工作和学徒制。

进入工作世界 (Entering the working world)

I spent months developing my own coding skills in my spare time, looking for and researching engineering roles, and trying to gather as much information as I could find.

我花了几个月的时间在业余时间发展自己的编码技能，寻找和研究工程角色，并尝试收集尽可能多的信息。

I knew that I needed to get a well-paying job to be able to afford to live in London — it was either that or living in a council youth hostel room and doing A-Levels or an apprenticeship.

我知道我需要找到一份薪水高的工作，才能负担得起在伦敦的生活-要么就是那样，要么住在一个议会青年招待所里做A-Level或做学徒。

At times I felt hopeful of change, and at times I felt despair. Although I had plenty of encouragement from a number of individuals, I also had discouragement from recruiters and many companies that declined me due to my age and/or experience level.

有时我对变革充满希望，有时我感到绝望。 尽管我得到了许多人的鼓励，但我也受到招聘人员和许多公司的挫败感，这些人由于我的年龄和/或经验水平而拒绝了我。

During this time, I happened to stumble across the Starling Bank website while clearing out old bookmarks in Chrome. I had heard about Starling a while back, so decided to have a browse through their site. I knew I liked their product, so I jumped onto their careers section, saw an opening for an Engineer, and hit “apply.”

在这段时间里，我偶然发现了Starling Bank网站，同时清除了Chrome中的旧书签。 不久前，我听说过史达琳(Starling)，因此决定浏览他们的网站。 我知道我喜欢他们的产品，所以我跳到他们的职业领域，看到了一个工程师的空缺，然后点击“应用”。

Within a couple of hours, I got a response from Hessie, their Head of People Operations, inviting me in for a chat the next morning — to which I clearly said yes!

在几个小时内，我收到了他们的人事部门负责人Hessie的回复，邀请我第二天早上进行聊天-我明确地同意了！

The next morning I went into Starling’s office in the City and absolutely loved it — the offices looked great, the work they were doing looked really interesting. And virtually everyone I saw had a smile on their face. It just felt like such a warm and welcoming environment to be in.

第二天早上，我去了史达琳在纽约市的办公室，绝对喜欢它-办公室看起来很棒，他们所做的工作看起来真的很有趣。 几乎所有我见过的人都笑了。 感觉就像在一个如此温馨的环境中。

I had a chat with Hessie, a chat with Sam (Lead Engineer) and Rory (Junior Engineer), as well as John (CIO) and Anne (CEO), and to my surprise was offered a job on the spot. It almost all felt too good to be true.

我与Hessie聊天，与Sam(首席工程师)和Rory(初级工程师)以及John(CIO)和Anne(首席执行官)聊天，当场给了我一个惊喜。 几乎所有人都感到难以置信。

A part of me held back though — did I really want to give up my life, college, my qualifications, and my home, for this?

但是，我的一部分受阻—我真的要为此放弃自己的生活，大学，学历和住所吗？

I was going against the norm. I was going against the traditional school structure I’d been conditioned into thinking was “the right way.”

我违反了规范。 我与传统的学校结构背道而驰，因为我习惯于认为这是“正确的方法”。

In all honesty, it felt wrong. But I knew it was the right move for me.

老实说，这是错误的。 但是我知道这对我来说是正确的举动。

I could spend two years in sixth form, not learning anything that would help my future career progression. Or, I could spend those two years working for an amazing company like Starling, doing what I love doing every day, learning more than I ever would at sixth form, getting valuable experience that would genuinely help my career, being able to live comfortably and independently in London by myself at just 17, and amassing 7 years of combined professional experience by the time I was 23.

我可能会花六年的六年级时间，不学习任何有助于我未来职业发展的东西。 或者，我可以花那两年在像Starling这样的出色公司里工作，做我每天喜欢做的事，学到比六年级时更多的东西，获得宝贵的经验，这些经验对我的事业有真正的帮助，能够过上舒适的生活，我只有17岁，就在伦敦独立生活，到23岁时已经积累了7年的专业经验。

That was the best decision I have ever made, and I’m so glad I made it.

那是我做过的最好的决定，我很高兴自己做了。

我今天的生活 (My life today)

Although I do still struggle with some anxiety to this day, I manage it. I have a support system when I need it. I see a psychologist every week to keep an eye on me. And now more than ever, I feel happy. Happier than ever before.

尽管我至今仍在焦虑中挣扎，但我还是设法解决了。 我有一个需要的支持系统。 我每周都会见心理学家关注我。 现在，我比以往任何时候都感到更加高兴。 比以往任何时候都快乐。

Now, I work as a Software Engineer on the Marketplace team at Starling. Most of my work is done in either Java or React/Redux, but I’m slowly branching out into doing more mobile development and other front-end work too.

现在，我在Starling的Marketplace团队中担任软件工程师。 我的大部分工作都是用Java或React / Redux完成的，但是我正在慢慢地扩展到做更多的移动开发和其他前端工作。

As you have probably gathered by now, I’m incredibly passionate about technology, but the one thing that I do not want is to only be a Software Engineer. I want to do more.

正如您现在可能已经聚集的那样，我对技术充满了热情，但是我不想要的一件事就是只当一名软件工程师。 我想做更多。

I’ve already started creating and leading a project at Starling, as well as organizing our LGBTQ+ community outreach, doing talks, representing Starling at events, getting involved with Marketing/Design, and more.

我已经开始在Starling上创建和领导一个项目，以及组织我们的LGBTQ +社区外展，进行演讲，代表Starling参加活动，参与市场营销/设计等等。

And I’m studying Math and Computer Science A-Levels after all, as Starling was happy to support me in gaining those qualifications.

毕竟，我正在学习数学和计算机科学A级课程，因为史达琳很高兴为我提供这些资格的支持。

I consider myself very creative, and I’m very happy to be in a position at Starling where I can be more than just an engineer. I really, truly do love my new career.

我认为自己很有创造力，我很高兴能在Starling担任一个职位，不仅可以担任工程师。 我确实非常热爱我的新职业。

我的目标前进 (My goals moving forward)

In my lifetime, I want to use technology to improve the lives of people on this planet.

在我的一生中，我想使用技术来改善地球上人们的生活。

No, I don’t mean working for a company that just releases a new phone every year. I want to use technology to improve the lives of people less fortunate than myself. I want to try and make the world a better place.

不，我并不是说要为每年发行新手机的公司工作。 我想利用技术来改善比我自己不幸的人们的生活。 我想尝试使世界变得更美好。

Hopefully, one day, I’ll get to a position where I can do that, and I’m really excited for what the future holds.

希望有一天，我能担任一个能够做到这一点的职位，我对未来的发展感到非常兴奋。

For now, I get to write code every day that makes it easier for people to bank and improves the financial lives of everyone that uses Starling.

现在，我每天都要编写代码，以使人们更容易银行业务，并改善使用Starling的每个人的财务状况。

I think being a Software Engineer at my age gives me a unique perspective on how technology impacts young people, because I am one of the young people impacted by it, so I see it all first-hand. That perspective is something I bring to the table when I contribute to the development of a new piece of technology, and it’s a perspective I want to share.

我认为，在我这样的年龄担任软件工程师，这使我对技术如何影响年轻人产生了独特的见解，因为我是受到技术影响的年轻人之一，因此我亲眼目睹了一切。 在为新技术的开发做出贡献时，我会提出这种观点，这是我要分享的观点。

翻译自: https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/technology-me-growing-up-in-the-digital-age-f628f656558e/