Two years ago I was just another cog in the great wheel of Apple Retail. I wanted something more meaningful than ringing up products and placing them in a bag. I quit that life to self-teach myself enough to get accepted into a rigorous full-stack training academy. Intellectual curiosity is my biggest asset and I call on it everyday to further what I know.

I self-taught using any learning resource I could find. I then used that foundation to attend an intensive 3-month full-stack bootcamp in San Francisco. Everyday I follow the ABC mantra (always be coding), I read blog posts from wiser developers, downloaded countless eBooks for a deeper dive into languages I am fond of (Ruby, JavaScript, Rails just to name a few), and even joined up with coding communities who strive to make learning to code as accessible as possible (Free Code Camp, Code Newbies etc).

Being surrounded with intelligent people who have nothing but genuine care about your growth in this difficult field is the most refreshing part of this experience. The community is incredibly nurturing for newcomers and I love that. There's also no greater feeling than connecting different technologies together for the first time after countless frustrations and bugs and errors, and you get to SEE something in your browser that YOU crafted. I still get goosebumps.