I have always been interested in computers. When I was in highschool I took a Basic programming course. This was in the late 80’s and done on a TRS80. After highschool, I was unable to afford my own PC at home and for several years I wondered what it would be like to have my very own home computer. In the late 90’s my brother and his wife purchased a PC and would sign into AOL over dialup. I would stop by their house at times and spend hours on their PC. I finally saved enough to buy my own home computer. I have been connected to the internet in one form or another ever since. I decided in 1997 to attend Devry University for a degree in CIS, Computer Information Systems. At that time, the amount of school work you could do online was very limited and in person attendance at campus was manditory. Working a full time job and trying to get to class in the evening was very difficult. After only 1 semester I dropped out. For years I would wonder what would have happened if I could have finished my degree and where I would be in the tech industry now. Last year I had surgery on both of my hands for carpel tunnel. While sitting at home for 5 weeks I started to worry about my future, 45 years old at the time. I decided to check out some online education options. I enrolled for a Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science. I decided I was finally going to go for it and become a programmer. After 6 months and 12 college credits partime online, I realized that I did not need a degree to learn, and I started learning on my own with free courses and some paid courses online. I got to the point where I needed direction. Learning on my own was great, but I didn’t have a clear path. Since I started my journey, I have met many online friends in the developer community. After hearing more about boot camps, I started checking them out and finally decided on Flatiron. I started with the Software Engineering course and cohort on May 13, 2019. This is my first blog entry. I hope to be successful at Flatiron and within a year from now be working full time as a full stack developer. .