I was born in Colombia. I remember the first time my dad brought a computer to our house. All I did then was to try and figure out that thing. My neighbors and friends will come and visit and we would sit there for hours playing with it. After they’ll leave, I would spend the whole night on it. I became a bit obsessed with it and it was then when I decided I would like to study Computer Science.
Fast forward a few years. I moved to the U.S. and became a Private Banker for one of the biggest banks in the world. What happened? I tried to pursue the “American Dream”. I really wanted to be financially successful, however, I quickly realized that world was not for me. Everyday at work I was mainly thinking of the time I would be back home so I could, again like when I was younger, could spend hours working with my computer. This time however, I used my computer to work on electronic music and audio engineering.
So I became a professional Audio Engineer and left the banking world. Most of the work had to do with incorporating software and hardware platforms, but a lot of the work also dealt with troubleshooting and tweaking the system, and I really enjoyed doing both. During my times off work, I would keep working on my personal projects from home in the same way. In other words, I had a computer in front of me except when I was sleeping.
As new technologies and applications were developed and new tech companies boomed, I became more curious about them. I was fascinated with the idea of running the biggest taxi company in the world without owning one single taxi! Or how a company disrupted the whole lodging industry without even owning one property.
I must say I always had that lingering thought in the back of my head “what if you would’ve pursued that computer science degree?” After all, I was constantly on my computer. But I didn’t have the time to go back to school full time and get another Bachelor’s degree. Yet, I still did the research. Maybe some universities have an online computer science program I thought. A few hours later, I discovered the coding bootcamp. I remember saying to my self out-loud, “this is it!”
Out of all the schools I researched, the Flatiron School caught my attention right away. I started the Bootcamp Prep course and instantly got hooked. I found myself wanting to learn more and more everyday. I really liked the fact that I was using my computer to create things and ideas, except this time it wasn’t just music.
I found the course both challenging and rewarding; I could use my creativity to develop software ideas and tackle the challenges when working on the labs (which I love by the way). So I signed up for the Online Web Developer program, and I’m currently on the second month (I didn’t know we had blog assignments ;), and I’m learning A LOT and enjoying all the challenges the program comes with.
Looking forward to what’s next!