I started down this path of software development a couple years ago. At the time, I never had formal training in this field. In high school, I always thought it was the nerdy thing to do and that I would never see myself in front of a computer typing out code. I got a degree in Economics.

That degree never did me any good. I left high school not knowing what I wanted to do in my life and went to college registering for classes that were open and fit well together on a schedule. That led me into the Economics path and ultimately a piece of paper with that word written on it. I was unhappy with all of it:

• Waiting for your registration time so you could register for a seat in the only class towards your major.
• Fighting the urge to fall asleep while the professor rambles on about the economic policies of sardines in the Pacific Ocean.
• Someone reversing their car out of a parking spot right into my truck after circling the structure for 45 minutes.

It was Spring, maybe Summer, of 2013 when I looked back at the years I wasted learned from and decided to look into something that had always peaked my interest… Seeing that I would never make it as an acrobatic aerialist, I went to a bookstore and bought “Teach Yourself C++ in 24 Hours”. I taught myself C++ in 24 hours! To this day, I don’t think I’ve written anything in C++, but what that book really taught me was that learning to program gives you a lot of power to be creative and build some really useful stuff.