The modern world is filled with technology and social media. Over 53% of the world’s population uses social platforms, according to Datareportal. What holds together these websites and apps? Who creates the system for sending and receiving messages? Who filters social media posts to the user’s liking? What does it take to understand the world on the other side of the screen that creates websites and technology? 

Few people understand the efforts required to build a digital platform and the lifestyle that comes with coding, especially as a student.

Sophomore Jack Goler finished his math homework late on a Saturday night and spent some time with his family. After everyone had gone to bed, he opened his laptop to lines of multicolored text racing across the screen. It was 1 a.m. and the house was perfectly quiet. A small plate of cheese rested on his nightstand.

Goler planned to finish his newest creation, Quadstr, an anonymous chat website. The late hours of the night were his best opportunity to do so. “Between 1 and 3 a.m., [I am] so tired and sleep-deprived that [I] throw down some random code, and it works,” Goler said. 

In order to achieve productivity, Goler needed to enter what he calls “the zone.” “I’ll go somewhere where I won’t be distracted, […] and with a clear head, I can be productive for hours,” he said.

Goler terminated his coding session around 3 a.m. after completing the first version of the social network project. 

Managing school and building high-level code comes with its difficulties. “Some days I’m so exhausted from school that I can’t code,” Goler said. As a sophomore, he works hard to balance his academic schedule with his passion for coding.

Coders or “hackers” in movies are mainly adults who can seemingly write vast amounts of impactful code in seconds, but this is not the same reality for Goler and other high school coders, according to Goler. 

“We don’t wear hoodies and stare at green text flashing on the screen,” Goler said. “It’s more so doing research. It’s a pretty brutal process, but 90% of it is reading documentation online and trying to incorporate it into your code. It’s really not as active as people think.” 

The technology industry, especially prevalent in Silicon Valley, relies on coding and programming to build websites, design robots and create ideas. Goler recognizes the value of his knowledge, but he mainly expresses his enjoyment for the ability to code. “I just really like making code. It gives me freedom, and there is so much I can do,” he said.