Welcome! Some links will be below soon, but first, read more about my history with writing code below.
I first interacted with writing code for computers at a class at University of Wisconsin-Madison around 7th grade. It was a class I took with my grandparents, and it covered Scratch. I quickly found the creation aspect of Scratch incredibly fun - I could have an idea of something to make and then with sufficient work I could make it happen. After some time with Scratch, I wanted to move on to have more freedom in what I made. So, I started playing around with Java. A lot of my early programming revolved around games. My first successful project was a computer version of a board game that I had made, based on the Hunger Games. I continued heavily programming for fun through 9th and 10th grades, but by 11th grade I had started to get too busy with music. So, the programming for fun took a bit of a break, but involvement in various programming-related organizations across high school persisted.
The main spark that got programming going again for me was my first job, a part-time position working with the Environmental Studies department at Oberlin College. Our mission was to implement software that subconsciously reminded people of their resource consumption so that they could lower it and our city could be more resource-efficient. That job actually continued all the way until September of 2021, where I gradually increased my responsibilities to eventually being the lead engineer of the entire project. You can check out this project at either environmentaldashboard.org or communityhub.cloud.
My career journey has involved other experiences along the way. First, in the summer of 2019 I had an internship at Upper Hand. Later, when the Covid pandemic made classes very weird, I took the 2020-21 academic year off of classes and worked full-time at Upper Hand. Finally, in the summer of 2021 I worked full-time with the Common Fund within the National Institutes of Health. More information about all of these positions will be linked up above as everything is written soon!