I got my degree in psychology at Western Washington University because I enjoy learning about how humans function, but a career in human resources and/or dog training, it wasn’t a good fit, and so I shifted my attention toward the IT industry and pursued a formal education via the Google IT Support Certificate. I have always pursued learning about computers as a hobby so it came to me very quickly. My interests in computers originates back when I was a kid and my parents allowed me to break apart our first PC at home. I was intrigued by how all the parts worked. This has developed into a passion to learn everything I can about computers.

My background with computers originates to my childhood where I played a lot of computer games. I played a game by Blizzard Entertainment called Warcraft 3, which had two learning aspects. Firstly there was the feature of hosting games for myself and my friends which would be hosted on my computer, this required me to access the router configurations to open a port to allow my friends to connect to my computer. Secondly and more predominately was the sandbox world editor application which is where I first learned the formatting and operations of code. Within the world editor you could create events, triggers, loops and if statements for varying functions. This was my first introduction into coding, and it was fun because it was one big puzzle and creative opportunity to create something fun for me and my friends to play.

My Background in psychology also originates early on in life. When I was about 10 my family got our first dog “Spike” and I was instantly obsessed with trying to understand what he was thinking. I remember one time he snipped at me when I was trying to pet him and my mother instinctually lashed out at him to protect me, and I was crying in bewilderment as to why my friend, my dog, would snap at me. I started researching everything I could about dogs, and how they think. Because of my background with computers I had a nearly unlimited resources on the internet to study. Eventually everything started to click, clarity into universal social dynamics regardless of species. I started training my dog for agility courses in our back yard because it was fun and bonding. I first started training for family friends when I was about 15, and dog sitting for pay under the table when I was about 17.

When I got to college I was constantly torn between which field of study I wanted to pursue. I loved researching about how creatures think and perceive others because it was so interesting, but I also loved the problem solving of computer science. Looking back I loved studying about psychology, but for the sake of a career I probably should have studied computer science. With that said there is one main under-lying theme, one constant, and that is when I and inspired by something I just like to learn. I’ve always preferred to learn independently cause there are certain aspects in which come naturally and can move through very quickly, and other in which I am very slow and have to be extremely thorough. Mentors have told me in the past that I am very systematic once I understand something, but sometimes can be a slow learner.