If I tell this story to most people, some will laugh. Some will slowly shake their heads. And some will ask, "Bro, were you studying architecture or computer science?"
My answer is simple: I was studying architecture. But my heart? My heart had already wandered somewhere else entirely.
Year 2000. College. And a Notepad That Changed Everything.
I had just started college, enrolled in an Architecture course — building design, technical drawings, everything related to columns, beams, and walls. Back then I genuinely thought I was going to be a cool architect, holding a drafting pencil, wearing thick-rimmed glasses, sketching skyscrapers for a living.
But fate had already written a different story for me.
Computers back then were still a novelty. Windows 98 had just arrived. The internet was basically magic — dial-up connection, that iconic kreeeek-shhhhh-kreeeek sound every time you connected. If my mum wanted to use the phone, the modem had to come out first. No negotiation.
And while everyone else was figuring out Microsoft Word or losing hours to Solitaire, I found myself drifting toward something most college students back then had never touched: Notepad.
Not Notepad for taking notes. Notepad for writing code.
HTML: My First Language
There was no such thing as a YouTube tutorial back then. No Stack Overflow. No Google in the way we know it today. What existed were thick English textbooks, computer magazines from the bookstore, and a lot of trial and error — with far more error than trial.
But I kept going.
I started learning HTML — HyperText Markup Language. Tag by tag. <html>, <head>, <body>. Open Notepad, type it out, save as .html, then open it in Internet Explorer. If it actually rendered as a webpage, it felt like winning the lottery. If it didn't, I'd sit back, stare at the screen, and try again.
No syntax highlighting. No autocomplete. No shortcuts, no wizards, nothing. Just plain black text on a white background, and whatever I could hold in my head. Everything was manual. Everything was from scratch.
And the strange thing? I loved it.
CSS Enters the Picture
Once I had a feel for HTML, I discovered CSS — Cascading Style Sheets. If HTML is the skeleton of a webpage, CSS is the outfit. Suddenly I could change colours, fonts, layouts. My pages weren't just black and white boxes anymore.
I added blue. I changed the font. I added borders. I genuinely felt like a digital artist — meanwhile, my Architecture classmates were holding T-squares and drafting pencils, drawing floor plans.
My mum asked me once, "What are you doing in front of that computer until midnight?"
I said, "Working, Mum."
She followed up, "Working on what exactly? Is your course Architecture or Computers?"
I just smiled.
Flash and Java: Going Deeper
After HTML and CSS, I didn't stop. I kept exploring. I found Macromedia Flash — and back then, Flash was basically the god of web animation. Every "advanced" website had Flash. Loading screens were Flash. Buttons were Flash. If your website had a Flash intro, you were practically a rockstar webmaster.
I learned Flash too. Built animations, built interactions. Confusing at first, but it clicked eventually.
Then I pushed further and tried Java — not the coffee, not the island, but the programming language. Java was trending for web applets at the time. Was it harder than HTML? Absolutely. Did I sometimes break things completely and have no idea why? Also yes. But I kept going anyway.
What Kept Me Going?
People sometimes asked me back then, "How do you stay patient learning all this by yourself, with no teacher, no guide, just books and trial and error?"
Honestly, the answer is simple: I genuinely enjoyed it.
Not because of exams. Not because of grades. Not because anyone told me to. But because every single time I typed a line of code and it worked — something lit up inside me. It felt like I had learned a secret language that not many people knew. Like I could build something out of nothing.
If an architect builds structures with bricks and concrete, I was building digital structures with code and logic. Same concept, different medium.
And in that hostel room, with Windows 98, with a Notepad that had zero colour or visual help, with an internet connection that dropped the moment someone picked up the phone — I was already building something that would shape the rest of my career.
Closing: Part 1
I had no idea back then where this path would take me. I didn't know that one day I'd be building large-scale systems for government institutions. I didn't know that the skills I was quietly building alone in that room would become my sharpest professional tool.
All I knew was one thing: when you genuinely love doing something, learning never feels like a burden.
So I learned. Kept learning. With no fancy code editor. With nothing but Notepad and curiosity, in Windows 98.
The journey had only just begun.
Wahyudin Aziz | Career Journey Series
#TechJourney #WebDevelopment #Coding #Malaysia #PersonalBranding
