ACA 311 Introduction Bio

ReadMe.md

Create a gist. Write a short description about yourself. Education background. Professional background. Why did you enroll in ACA. Describe your goals for the class and life. How is your life situation going to affect those goals.

My names Ryan Blizzard. I raced professional motocross most of my life. After that I did some manual labor jobs which I still do driving tractor trailer. I enrolled in ACA to step away from manual labor and to go back to a life with freedom and better pay. My goals are to learn the back end much better than I did javascript while relearning and continuing to get better at Javascript which I struggle with. I want to be very good with Javascript. By reaching those goals I will just be more confident and enjoy this that much more by having more knowledge with it.

My name is Oscar Garcia. I´m originally from Monterrey, México. I currently run a Rental House in Austin, TX. It´s a Film Equipment Rental house and Video Production Company. The guy who programmed my website lives in Morocco. I found him on Reddit. As much as I like how he programs I feel at a disadvantage about changing and updating stuff on my business website. I decided to learn how to program for different reasons. One of the reasons being able to make changes on my own business website. Since he used React to make my website and this course aims at learning react... I decided to join ACA. I studied Film Production at Full Sail University in Florida. My goals in class are to ask a lot of questions and learn. My currents life situation is good. I can´t complain. I have no excuses.

My name is David Gasch. I graduated from Boise State University back in 2012 with a degree in Mass Communications and Media Production. I moved to Austin shortly after thinking I was going to find some immense success at a media production company. My plans were derailed by family emergencies and I spent the next few years in New Mexico. I ended up working in a series of random capacities- a local government planning director and grant writer, a firefighter/EMT, a captain in a security firm, the food industry. I finally got back on the right path a year ago. I got a job working for a startup in downtown Austin that helps people build healthy credit history. The company, Self Financial, has helped me get back on the right track and enabled my to pursue what I really want to do. Though I was learning web development on my own online, I felt like I was limited going that route.

After a pretty stereotypical, aimless struggle through my 20's I finally enrolled at Austin Coding Academy to speed up my path to becoming a professional web development. This has already opened doors with my current employer. I will soon begin, in a limited role, to work with our engineering department. I intend to continue to grow with a rapidly growing company and transition into a full-time engineering role upon completion of this course. I don't feel I know enough yet about the industry to offer a defined path I want to pursue- but it feels great making moves into a career I want. It has been a long road battling personal issues but I'm making progress. If I've learned anything it's that you have to own your stuff. Your mess. And if you find something you truly want you have to give it your all. This hasn't been instant for me but I'm at a point where I'm seeing small wins all the time and see a solid foundation forming. Momentum is a real thing. I look forward to finishing this shared journey with ACA cohort 8. This time next year I hope we can all call ourselves web development professionals.

My name is Andrew Simons. I graduated from Delta State University in Cleveland, MS in 2011 where I studied business and played on the golf team. After college I moved to Austin to pursue a career in the golf business working and teaching at a club in Spicewood, TX. Although I loved teaching, and was grateful for my opportunity, I found myself working every weekend and holiday which limited my time for friends, family, and other accomplishments I wanted to make. I have since been working managing a sales team for a small business called 360 Home Connect. It's been a rewarding experience helping start and grow a company from the ground up, but I don't feel the passion I hoped I would. After some coding lessons from my brother, who is a developer, I realized this was something I wanted to pursue. ACA caught my eye from the beginning of my bootcamp search due to it fitting my budget, schedule, and friendly atmosphere. My end goal is to become a full time developer, but more importantly is to not get overwhelmed and enjoy the process. I have learned so much in the past four months and am excited to see what the next four bring. If I continue to challenge myself and stay positive, I believe everything will take care of itself!

My name is Alex Ross. I graduated from Texas Tech University for my Bachelor's degree then University of Texas-San Antonio for my Master's degree. I currently work as a Data Analyst. My Master's degree was in Economics with a concentration in Econometrics. It is here that I took my first programming classes. These were geared toward handling data and running statistical tests with it. The big three softwares were SAS, R, and Python's PANDAS package. I found that I enjoyed coding but wanted to actually build things with it so I took a course in Web Development shortly after grad school. This was with the Ruby on Rails stack. I enjoyed it well enough to actually start to look into doing this for money. After researching schools I finally chose ACA because it seemed to check all the boxes for me. The stack taught here is in demand and the curriculum is comprehensive enough to enable me to be able to find employment after it is over. It got rave reviews as well. My goal with this course is to absolutely get a job with the knowledge gained here. I know it's cliche but my life goal is to be able to travel. Hopefully the investment I'm putting into myself now will allow me to do that.

My name is Anthony Hayes-Mercado. I have been working in the foodservice industry since I was 18. I currently work at a restaurant named Panera Bread. I don't have much of a college background like most of my classmates other than enrolling in Austin community College last spring. I realized shortly after my enrollment I didn't enjoy going to college, and dropped out after just one semester. I have always had interests in computers due to my obsession with video games. I was inspired to code from John Romero the co-founder of DOOM. I learned of his background and interests in gaming a few years back. I want to eventually learn how to code so that I can create something as renowned as DOOM.

Hello, my name is Jonathan Rivas, I'm 24 recently moved to Austin because I wanted to get into computer programming. I graduated high school and went straight into the food and hospitality service and I've been there ever since. Although I'm good in the hospitality industry I don't feel like I am completely happy and satisfied as to where it's leading me. My goals are to learn how to program and develop apps and websites both front and back end. I've always been a creative person and I like to create things with my hands whether its wood working or PC building. I joined the ACA bootcamp because I wanted more for myself and figured that it was the best time and place to get into computer programming.

Hello, my name is Dominik, I'm originally from Central Texas but recently moved to the Chicago area with my wife due to her being in the military. I have always had a respect for computers and all they can do, but over the last few years I've started to gain a passion for both the fundementals of computer hardware, but also the Networking/Programming side. I began self-taught at the end of 2019 and then moved on to learning about Networking before the pandemic hit. Once that hit, I seemed to be stuck at home a lot and figured I'd pick programming back up. Once again I felt stuck but the want to learn programming was still there, so I found ACA and signed up. The rest is history. I am interested in the backend/server side of programming and am looking forward to truly getting my foot in the door.

My name is Scott, I currently work in email marketing and I'm based out of Chicago. In the past I've worked in front-end development, and while I thoroughly enjoyed that work, I felt I wasn't given any chance to grow and was often stressed over being in way over my head. Due to this I sought out an education to fill the gaps in my knowledge, and push my understanding to the next step. I joined ACA specifically because the course offered the exact technologies I was interested in learning. I'd like to leave this program with a strong fundamental understanding and toolkit to get job opportunities I'm interested in and complete my personal projects.