Blogging 467

A few years ago while working in my previous role at an oil & gas services company, I stumbled across accessing the back-end of our database system. Intrigued, but also very confused about what I was looking at, I started down a rabbit hole that would ultimately lead me to OSU’s post-bacc program.

After making this discovery at work, I began hopping on codeacademy everyday at home in an attempt to learn more about web development. I first began learning HTML, followed by CSS and then Javascript. As I progressed through the online curriculum, it was awesome to visually see what I could accomplish and was hooked to learn more.

Unfortunately, one day after arriving back to work from my lunch break I was informed I would be laid off. The news was tough. I had relocated to another state at the behest of my company and had no other tangible skills that would help me land a job in a different industry. Plus I knew my previous degree in political science was not in very high demand and would not be enough.

Thus recognizing I needed more education and applicable experience, I thought about enrolling in a coding boot camp however many of the job postings in my area required having a degree. As I continued to peruse for information and surfing on reddit in-between job searches, I came across the OSU post-bacc program.

Immediately I felt this program was designed for people like myself who wished to gain a promising educational experience in attempt to make a career change for the better. Starting the program was tough as I had no prior coding experience other than doing web dev stuff on codeacademy and C++ was like a foreign language to me, but I stuck it out. I put in long hours, read the book over and over and grew a deep understanding of the language. Thus after my first term was over, I developed a deep confidence in myself that I could succeed in this program with the ultimate code of landing a software engineering job.

As I progressed through the program I began to learn other languages and skills that would only further my confidence and help me succeed in my job quest. Learning data structures in C was amazing. I enjoyed it so much that at one point all I wanted to do was code in C. Assembly language was amazing as well as I was fortunate enough to ULA for the class for two terms, which I firmly believe was a great experience for myself and bright spot on my resume for potential employers to acknowledge. Plus, building a micro-service in Python really helped me hone my skills in the language as I was a late bloomer to learning the language.

Despite not yet having my degree, I began applying to jobs and was astounded with the feedback I received. Granted I built a portfolio with my projects to showcase what I could do, I was inundated with OA’s and interviews. Some OA’s I totally butchered as I was new to the process others I did really well on. Same thing with the interviews. Overall, despite my flops in the interview and OA process it really helped prepare me for the next opportunity and how to effectively manage time in OAs and crush coding questions.

Fast forward to now, all the time, stress and effort paid off. After many interviews and coding challenges, I was able to land a software engineering role with a defense company that I am super excited about. I have always wanted to work in defense and create products that help in achieving our nation’s mission of national security. I am grateful for  the guidance and framework OSU’s program and instructors have provided me and look forward to my new journey as a software engineer.