Hello World. 👋

The best way to describe my first day/week in the Develop Carolina apprenticeship would be the GIF above 😂

I’m super grateful and excited for having the opportunity to be a part of this program. It was really nice meeting and speaking to some of my fellow cohort mates and realizing we actually shared feelings of anxiety, nervousness, and uncertainty. So I wasn't alone!

So a little about me...

I love technology. A very simple statement, I know. When I was younger, video games were the initial ✨spark✨. It started with console gaming, then evolved into PC gaming. My first PC game was Halo Combat Evolved. Funny enough, I didn't even have a 'gaming' PC. I had a really generic home HP family computer that I played it on. I really wish I could remember the performance, but I can imagine I was getting probably 12 fps.

When was working as a teenager, I finally had my own funds. I can build a PC! So that happened and really accelerated my passion. Started learning Linux so I could rent a VPS and run my own game servers without having to 'rent' individual overpriced 'slot' based game servers. From then on, this tech stuff has been in motion.

What about development?

Initially, I didn't pursue Software Development. I enrolled in an IT program and got my B.S. Information Technology. During that program, I had some intro to programming classes and thought it was really cool. Thinking now, it was pretty basic, but I really enjoyed it. At the time, I thought that to get into development, I would have had to go the computer science route and be this genius mathematician. A lot of misconceptions on my end. After completing my degree, I never moved into a technical role. Still wasn't sure what I wanted to do for the rest of my life 😅.

And so our story begins... shoutout to any Fable fans

I started to research and realized that I could make a career in software development and remember how much I enjoyed my introduction to programming. For a few months, I went the self-learning route and I was having a blast. Spending time after work and even weekends dedicated to learning. That was REALLY the point when I discovered I found what I LOVE doing. After building some confidence I decided I would enroll in a Bootcamp to get a deeper dive (primarily web development) into current technologies used in the industry. I completed that in April 2022 and found Develop Carolina!

Since then, I've had such an amazing experience! I'm just so excited to be on this journey to see how we will all grow over the next six months.