I think that there are two big factors that drove me to come to Turing. The first is my learning style. I work most effectively when I am able to really dive into learning new things or working on a new project. And attending school at Colorado College and learning on the block plan gave me the opportunity to fully explore this style of learning. Now, even more than before college, I feel that this is a learning style that I am drawn towards and work well within. I also think that this lines up well with my StrengthsFinder themes, being Focus, Acheiver, Relator, Deliberative, and Learner. I certianly do not go about approaching big new things like Turing without a lot of consideration, but once I have made that decision I am very driven to learn and reach goals. Since starting Turing, I feel like I have been more driven than possibly ever to learn as much as I can.
This has also been somewhat of a struggle at times, which brings me to the second factor that drew me to Turing. I have always enjoyed things that combine aesthetic, minimalism, and functionality. This was what drew me to routesetting, which I was doing before Turing. And now at Turing it pretty accurately describes the type of work I enjoy the most. Especially starting out this was difficult at times becuase I would want things to look or work better than they did, and perhaps better than I had the skills and knowledge for at the time. This was, and sometimes still is, frustrating. But it has also pushed me to want to learn more on my own and figure out different ways to get myself closer to really being able to create things the way that I want to and envision them. I think and hope that this is a theme that will continue for me throughout Turing and my career after. I know that I want to build a career in the more design-heavy side of web development, as well as in a position that forces me to continue learning and growing as a developer.
I think that the most difficult part of storytelling for myself right now is just finding the right words to get my story across. I feel like I have a decent (and improving) idea in my head of who I am/ my brand and what I want to be doing, I just need to continue praticing putting that into words, both verbally and written, so that I am actually able to effectively communicate the story in my head to people when asked.