I’m going to start my story circa 1998 in sunny Southern California, where I began my adventure into the digital world at the age of 16. I was fascinated with the process of creating visually stimulating designs in Photoshop 6 and coding them into webpages using Dreamweaver and Geocities – remember Geocities?! Knowing I needed to get out and start my college career, I made a profoundly exciting decision in my junior year of high school. I tested out and earned my high school degree early in order to pursue my plans of a Master’s Degree at UCSD. Thus, I reliquished my membership in the class of 2000, but I knew what I was doing… I was 17, I had very little time, and I knew everything, of course!

Luckily, I finished up all my general ed requirements before making another profound decision. I decided to move all the way to the UK to live with my heart-throb and mentor. I learned so much from this wickedly talented bloke – about web development, and about myself. After about a year and a half I decided that the U.S. was worthy of my presence again (sarcasm – oh to be a know-it-all 20-year-old), so I came back to pursue that pesky ‘master degree’. Well… I kind of fell in love again. With Photography. I eagerly accepted this detour and swiftly changed my major. I moved to Los Angeles so that I could attend Santa Monica College, a school offering one of the top-rated photo programs in the nation.

I was passionately in love with the traditional art and science of recording light. I would average 8 hours/day in the darkroom at SMC, where I became a student lab tech for this very purpose. It wasn’t until I was taking commercial photography that my senses came to me. I didn’t want to have to make money by taking pictures for other people. It didn’t feel right, it wasn’t me. Well, what is something I am passionate about that I can support myself with? It took me a few years to come to the obvious answer.

This year, 2012 – 14 years from the beginning of this story – I will be graduating from SMC with my AA in Website Software and certifications in IT Project Management. I’m not sure yet if I will continue my college career and pursue a four year degree and beyond. I suppose it will depend on where my career takes me. I’m currently working as a Front End Developer, and loving it.

The greatest lesson I’ve learned in the past ten years is that the only way to measure success is to ask, “am I happy?” Without hesitation, my answer is Yes. I wonder where will I go from here; I know it will be somewhere extraordinary…