Where I came from:
I graduated from the University of Pennsylvania in 2011 with a BA in Economics. During the peak OCR rush my senior year, I realized that I was not excited by the typical pathways of a Penn graduate and I needed more time to think about what I wanted to do that would appeal to me both creatively and analytically. Luckily, I talked to a Teach For America recruiter that fall and applied for TFA. TFA was attractive to me because I had enjoyed working with kids as a sleep-a-way camp counselor, it gave me the ability to make a positive impact, and would make me a more articulate speaker and leader. At the same time, joining TFA would give me two more years to figure out what I wanted to do long term.
What I did not know about TFA when I made my decision was that teaching middle school is hard. The first couple of months I struggled to get my classrooms compliant and on-task. I had visions of explaining really hard math concepts to students, but instead, I spent most of my time trying unsuccessfully to get 32 middle school students silently working on a do now. It got to a point that what I was doing was just not working so I needed to try something new. I started using an iPad in my classroom to increase student engagement and my own efficiency as a teacher. Classes went from being apathetic and unruly to being compliant and on-task where learning could happen. By the end of my two years of teaching, students that I had for two years grew, on average, more than 3 academic math levels creating an opportunity for these students to take first year Calculus before college.
Over time, I wanted to build my own apps to use on my Smart Board so I started teaching myself web development. Doing beginner problems and tutorials, I realized that I liked programming because it allow me to be both creative and think analytically.
Where I am going:
Leaving Teach For America, I independently studied Ruby for three months (with a two week MLB baseball stadium road trip sprinkled in) and then joined Launch Academy in November 2013 in Boston. At Launch Academy, I learned Ruby and Rails in a cooperative and flipped classroom educational model It was a great an intensive 10 weeks. During this time, I built The Classroom Flipper. Check out this blog post to hear more about my reflections on the building process.
This arena will serve as a place for me to reflect on and share what I am learning as a professional web developer