Hello again!
I’ve never run my own blog before, but I guess there’s a first time for everything! I’m sure you already read the basics about me on the homepage, but I’d like to dedicate this first blog post to a more full look at my journey to and through OSU.
I graduated from college the first time around in 2016, with a Bachelor of Music with a K-12 teaching certification from the University of Nebraska at Omaha. Unfortunately, I only taught for about a year as a substitute teacher, and took a full-time job outside of teaching because I got an opportunity to make more money in a different line of work. I loved teaching but I think I didn’t really like it as a job, which is one of the many things that college doesn’t prepare you for.
I had several dead end retail jobs over the next several years, trying to find my fit, and then COVID hit. It was as fun for me as it was for anybody else, which is to say not much fun at all. In the fall of 2020, I knew I had to make a change in my life, so I started doing some research on ways I could make that happen. The time was passing anyway and we all stuck inside or outside with 3 layers of plastic between us and fellow human beings, so why not now? Several of my friends went to school for Computer Science and now have good jobs and careers, and I always said that if I could go back again, I would major in Computer Science instead. I looked at boot camps, Master’s degree programs, and 2nd Bachelor’s degree programs like OSU. I found that OSU’s post baccalaureate program had an active reddit and discord, had good reviews, and was generally rated a good value for the money. I took an online course in python at https://www.py4e.com/ to see if I liked programming, and found that I loved it!
I had to take an online College Algebra course to fulfill OSU’s pre-requisites for the post-bacc program, so I did that for a few weeks in January 2021. I completed the course, applied for the Spring quarter at OSU, and lo and behold I made it in! All in all the program will have taken me about 2.75 years, due to various scheduling arrangements I had to make around my life.
I have been working full time throughout this iteration of college, and secured an internship as a Software Developer for the summer of 2023. I got my finances in order and strategically quit my job for the internship. I came in with more to lose than anyone and I was determined to be a front-runner. If there was a list, I wanted my name to be on top. I worked hard and took point on several projects. At the end, I got an offer over several other fellow interns who were in Masters’ degree programs from more prestigious schools. I am continuing my internship through the fall at full-time hours, and will start my official full-time position in January after I graduate.
My time at OSU has been both challenging and rewarding, but I am so proud of myself for going as far as I have, and I am very excited to finish this last quarter and start the rest of my life. I am looking forward to working on a cool project (yet to be selected but I am interested in doing a Mobile/Cross platform project as Mobile Development was one of my favorite classes I’ve taken at OSU), and to hopefully finishing with a bang!
If anyone wants to chat on discord, you can find me at ohyeskbs#4498 🙂
Leave a Reply