Growing up I played video games in my leisure time. Always begging the question "How do they make these?". Then comes my freshman year of Highschool. I chose a Visual Basic and C# course as one of my electives. Now, I can pick up programming languages rather quickly, but at the time it was a different story. It wasn't until sophomore year, when I took my first Java class, that it really clicked. We started off making games and programs with JComponents and it was just as educational as it was exciting. I was thrilled. I was so excited, that I even researched how to create game loops with threads, animate sprite sheets, and network communication via sockets.
Sure enough, I kept taking more and more classes. Moving up to advanced and honors classes, I re-created data structures, real time messaging systems, 2D game engines, pathfinding AI. Often, our programming teacher would come to the advanced students (there were only about four of us) with extra curricular software problems. This one particular time, he had students in another course making Java classes that would be imported into a game he made. The Java classes all inherited from a "Fighter" class but of course overrode methods to make them unique. These classes would be imported into the game and they would compete. The naming convention is as follows: student last name-Fighter.java . The idea was to import every Java class into the game without having to account for every students different last name. I found a solution that same period. It was crazy to see how far I had came, and made me excited for the future. Not only did programming make me feel like I was on top of the world, I also found out how they made those games.
Eventually, after high school and working in the IT sector for a while I wanted to do more with software. With help from my parents to start, I ended up putting myself through Rutgers Coding Bootcamp. I wanted to "dip my keyboard" into web development, and I missed being in an educational setting. Every Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday I would go straight to school after working full time. On the other days I'd be completing assignments after work. I put my all into it, because that's what I do. Not long after I graduated, a friend from the bootcamp reached out to me with an opportunity...Walrus.
I finally was able to put my skills to use. Walrus was an online teaching platform born amidst "the remote era". Hosts could create events, lessons for those events, sponsors, view analytics all through the dashboard. The events were marketed for their customers on our participant facing website, allowing participants to sign up for events. And finally, hosts would teach there event live, with participant chat, lesson display, with the capacity for multiple camera angles via our events app.
Throughout my time at Walrus I had the privilege of working with some truly fantastic and intelligent people. Working closely with the team we created software we were proud of. I created functional components in ReactJS combined with numerous other technologies. I had built the lesson manager/editor, sponsors manager/editor, and the event feedback page. I had of course supplemented these projects with their backend counterparts including queries, mutations, database migrations, and more. Working closely with the design team and the other engineers, we made a positive environment full of creativity, support, and excellence. Through Walrus I learned a lot and am truly grateful for my time there. One things for sure, in any facet of the technology industry, you never stop learning.
