What do you want to be when you grow up?
Both of my parents were band directors growing up and so it is probably no surprise that I grew up wanting to do the same. While finishing my Undergraduate Degree in Music Education, I really fell in love with performing music and I decided to pursue a Master’s degree in music performance. I thought higher education was so much fun that I decided to go get a Doctorate as well.
During my doctoral studies I learned and performed contemporary music focusing on pieces that unite acousic instruments and technology. My dissertation covered pieces that were written for Horn and live computer interaction.
10 Years of College, Now What?
For anyone considering going to college for 10 years, let me save you some time and say just don’t do it. I really loved it, honestly until I got married. When I was a bachelor it was really great just studying and performing music, but there’s more to life than that.
Don’t go to college for 10 years
While working on my dissertation, I taught at a private school for a year then worked at a church doing music technology. During this time I decided it was time for a career change. My wife and I had just had our first child, and I needed to find a career I could really dig into and have some upward mobility. I have a brother-in-law who was a Software Engineer and every time I talked to him about what he was doing, I left the conversation thinking that I would love it and do well at it.
Taking the Leap
I began to explore coding more seriously as I contemplated a career change starting with a Java course on Udemy to see if I felt like it was a good fit. That eventually led to taking a Java bootcamp which got me my first job in the industry at a startup called Kipsu. We do digital messaging primarily for hotels. If you’ve every gotten a text from a hotel welcoming you, we were probably the company who made that happen.
I have been at Kipsu for almost a year and a half at the time of writting this and I have become particularly passionate about neovim and my terminal based development workflow. I also really enjoy writting and sharing what I’ve learned, so I hope you enjoy the content on this site!