Ever since I was a child, I knew I had a strong interest for technology. I remember it was Christmas 96' when I was gifted the Nintendo 64. It opened my eyes to the possibilities of technology, even if I didn't know it at the time. When I was about 12 years old my father bought a Dell desktop for our family to use. Later, I took the computer apart, and was able to put it back together. In the process I learned the RAM was faulty and the CPU was caked in dust. The dust was causing the computer to overheat, and the RAM was fried. My father bought replacement parts, and I cleaned the computer to the best of my ability (didn't know about Duster back then). After this, the computer ran better than when we had purchased it. From this point on, I knew I wanted to work with technology and had interests in Engineering.
When I went to college I chose to study Sustainable Technologies. I wanted to better my community and environment. My passion for the outdoors has always been on of my strongest drives. I worked in the field as a environmental and civil engineering technician. However, after two years I realized I wasn't really using cutting edge technology AND many of the jobs paid just above the poverty line in Buncombe County. I found that I was in a industry that produced so much unnecessary waste and wasn't what I learned in school. The career path seemed to lead to dead ends, and I wasn't making beneficial impacts in my local community.
About this same time, my friend was working on a video game project while he was at Full Sail University in FL. He asked me to produce the music (I play multiple instruments and produce my own music using various software) for the video game and happily I obliged. I believe we used a software called "Gamemaker Studio 2" and I learned a few things about coding. I had a lot of fun messing around with character sprites and animating the character. Writing code that allowed the character to jump, and then jump again midair was exciting and challenging. During this time so many ideas developed for applications in sustainable design, applications, teaching, and so much more. These ideas could be used to push sustainable actions using websites or software to help our environments and local communities.
I didn't know where to begin. I did not necessarily have a background in programming. I searched forums while I had down time at work. Finally a Reddit sub group called "R/codingbootcamps" popped up on my suggested feed. I looked into the group and many people had success in short 6 month or less programs. The one I found that interested me the most was Flatiron Programming Bootcamp.
I left my stable career two weeks before this program began. I have high hopes that this will be a great start in the tech field. My dream is to be a software developer that makes life easier for those in need.
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