About Me

CS467 – Blog #1

Image by Martine Auvray from Pixabay

Well, howdy. You’ve stumbled upon a dandy of a blog.

I’m Nick Reitano and I have been converting caffeine to code for about two years now. Whether it’s coffee, tea, or pills, I’ve been dabbling in code since 2010 but became obsessed with it in 2019.

This is the first blog post in a series of blog posts for my OSU capstone course. For this first blog post, I thought it would be fitting to give a brief background of who am I and how I got here and why you should care.

Addressing the ‘why you should care part’ first…

You really shouldn’t! That is… unless you want to learn how an average joe with an average intelligence, with an average life, and with an average addiction to caffeine came to switch careers in his mid-20s.

Brief(ish) Background

I’m currently living in the Denver, CO area with my wife and mini-Goldendoodle named Milo. The image above is not Milo.

I’m originally a cheese-head from Wisconsin and moved out to Colorado with my wife to start an exciting and adventurous life as newlyweds.

Then…. I was laid off (due to budget cuts and downsizing).

This made me re-think my career options as I wanted need to have job security. Right when I graduated with my first Bachelor’s of Science in the field of Chemistry, I realized I didn’t want anything to do with Chemistry. Well, that is, I didn’t want to work in a lab the rest of my life. So, I did some exploring and began to seriously dabble in programming.

Model 3 or Degree?

I researched if a degree was needed to become a software engineer/developer and came to the conclusion that I could go the self-taught route, but then when it comes time to interview for software developer roles, would I have a level playing field with someone with a Computer Science degree?

I didn’t think so. And I still don’t think so. Sure, there are companies out there willing to hire anyone who can get the job done. But I’m highly prone to imposter syndrome and mixing in my resume with a Chemistry degree in with a towering stack of resumes with Computer Science degrees just doesn’t sit well with me. And besides, learning from a structured curriculum forces me to learn things that I really don’t want to learn (I’m talking about you x86 Assembly Language!) But it was all worth learning.

Is the investment worth the price of a Model 3 worth it for me? YES. I’m expecting a great Return on Investment by switching to a tech career. Not to mention the job security of having a hard skill that is in high demand across the globe.

Image by Steve Buissinne from Pixabay

Turn Caffeine into Code! (What this blog is about)

Don’t like the taste of coffee?? Don’t like tea??

Introducing… PILLS!!!

I justify my addiction to caffeine pills to my friends and family by reassuring them that I only take as much caffeine that is in 4 cups of coffee which is (anecdotally) the average amount of coffee per day.

But I, like many others, have found the world’s most popular stimulant to be immeasurably helpful to stay focused and to write good code. I obviously don’t encourage anyone to become addicted to anything (everything in moderation) but hey! we’re programmers and have a weird ability to turn caffeine into code.

This blog is fairly free-flowing. Topics could range from technical mumbo-jumbo to my personal experiences.

If you have any suggestions for what to write about next or if you have something interesting to say, please leave a comment below.