My Story

I'd say my career started the last week of junior high. At that point, all of my classes had effectively finished, and playing whatever computer game the school's firewall failed to block was insufficient to stave off boredom for eight hours a day.

The solution? Well, that Code.org Minecraft game we played in computer class once was fun enough. It drained perhaps an hour, but then I started exploring the website for other things to do. I found their feature for lessons, and I specifically remember trying to create an ellipse. When I first saw it render on the screen, I was hooked.

For a few months, my favored solution to boredom was diving through online resources and textbooks. I probably alternated between trying to learn three different programming languages before I eventually came to a realization: if I seriously wanted to learn, I actually needed to make something.

Just as before, I resorted to Minecraft. More specifically, I set my sights on creating a mod for the game using Java. For a first project, it was perhaps too ambitious. In fact, I transitioned to other projects before ever finishing, focusing primarily on things I could do with Java before slowly trying to branch out. Still, this was how I found my answer for that standard small-talk question that everyone always asked:

"What do you want to do when you grow up?"

"Software Developer."

Since that decision, I have enrolled in the University of Texas at Austin, pursuing a bachelor's degree in computer science and a minor in business foundations. In the meantime, I have spent much of my high school experience building software projects, not only for school clubs and competitions but also for independent ideas and teams. My end goal is to find a job in software development after university, though I am not opposed to summer jobs and internships until then.