Since I was a kid, I’ve always had an interest in computers. I remember my parents getting mad at me when I took apart VCRs and toasters and I couldn’t put them back together. My excuse: “I just wanted to see how it worked”. Keep in mind, I was 5 when my fascination with computers began.

During this time, I was also exposed to video games (like many other kids) which only intrigued me even more. I remember my mom and dad getting me a Gameboy Advance for my 5th birthday with Yoshi’s Island and Tetris. Later on, I also ended up getting Pokemon Crystal which is my favorite game of all time.

Fast forward to high school, my interests still haven’t changed. I remember taking classes in Web Development using HTML and CSS, engineering using SolidWorks, and math classes, lots of math classes.

After I graduated high school, I was kind of lost as to what I wanted to do with my life (just like many other kids). Then, one day, I received this in the mail:

4th grade me had written a letter to my future self saying I wanted to be a “software ingineer”. With that said, I still didn’t know what being a software engineer entailed, so I googled “how to make a video game” and came across GameMaker Studio.

For those unaware, GameMaker is an engine for making 2D games. With this program, I learned the basics of functions, if/else logic, switches, etc. This wasn’t really a program or programming language for learning OOP. GameMaker has a proprietary language called GML which is a little limited in terms of what you can do with code.

Fast forward a year or so, I went to college for a little bit to get my basics done in addition to exploring some career paths. My college had a degree for programming, so I ended up pursuing that. It took me a while, but I ended up getting my associates in programming.

During the time I wasn’t in college, I was trying to figure out what field in programming I wanted to fully pursue. I ended up picking up a few cheap Udemy courses to see what I liked the most.

The first course was about “How to make a 2D Game” using Unity and C#. Around this time is when “Ladder - The Game” was born. This course taught me a lot more about programming and logic as a whole.

In addition to that course, I’ve picked up other courses in Full-Stack Web Development using Django, NodeJS, and iOS Development. I’ve made a few small projects here and there but never really published anything other than the few projects mentioned here.

There were points in college and in my own self-taught route where I didn’t think programming was for me. It just seemed like a never-ending road. That said, I’m glad I stuck with it. There are lots of things you can do with code. I believe the most important thing when learning anything is to not give up and persevere through the hard parts. I think the coolest part about all of this is that 4th grade me predicted what I wanted to be for a living (A Software “Ingineer” Engineer).

Thank you for coming to my Ted Talk reading my developer story!