Why I Decided To “Change Things”
By: Jasmine Ryon
Tags: Flatiron School, Software Engineering

Hello, I’m Jasmine Ryon and this blog post will explain why I decided to apply and follow through with Flatiron School’s online software engineering bootcamp.

I was born and raised in Honolulu, HI and moved to Riverside, CA when I was 20 years old. In Hawaii, I graduated from an all girls high school (that had a graduating class of 25 people) and then attended the University of Hawaii at Manoa for two years to study economics and engineering. Once I moved to California, I worked for a year in the food industry to gain residency then went back to school at Riverside Community College to try to finish my associates degree. As we all know, many things in life delays our plans; I ended up meeting the woman of my dreams at one of my jobs, having to put my schooling on the back-burner to work more hours and pay bills for our own place. When pandemic hit, I lost my on campus job at a University of California in Riverside and wan unemployed for a little bit. I got married soon afterward and my whole mindset and goals changed.

My wife, Mariah, and I

I started thinking what would be best for OUR future. How can I support my wife so that she can be able to go back to school as well or even have the opportunity to not work if she wants to? What kind of job and industry would I would be proud to say I am a part of? What kind of career path can I take that will fulfill my interests, be mentally engaging, but also provide enough financially to make our future goals reality? All these thoughts and more forced me to brainstorm and after my wife showed me a tiktok made by Flatiron Graduate, Andrew Sandoval (@and._.andrea), everything changed.

I have always been interested in engineering since high school and even before that when we were forced to get Apple MacBooks in 5th grade for our studies and classes. I took an engineering class for a few years in high school and enjoyed it so much that I decided to join the engineering team. In class and during team meetings we built robots for competitions and told the brain of the robot how to function. Telling robot brains how to move their arms, pick up things, and roll around was a taste of what programming was like and the coding software that we used was very simple compared to what we are learning in class at Flatiron; however, I’m happy I got that exposure because it was exciting seeing how our code made the robots act! I was also part of the rocket team for a couple years in high school that participated in competitions as well and that made the idea of engineering fun in my eyes.

My wife showed me that tiktok because she knew my current goal at the time was to work at Amazon for a year, use the Career Choice program to pay for schooling, and get a job as a Reliability Maintenance Engineering (RME) Technician for Amazon. She also knows my history of being interested in engineering and technology and knows I have a passion for creating, whether it be robots, cooking, singing. I researched everything I could on Flatiron, read the job report, curriculum, and committed to applying during one of my breaks when I was still working at Amazon. A week after, I had my interview, received the official acceptance letter, and asked to get started in the soonest possible cohort to get the ball rolling. I quit my job at Amazon, which I am grateful to even have the opportunity right now to solely focus on school, and started getting the prework for Flatiron done to get my mind and body used to being a student once again.

I originally asked to be placed in the online software engineering full time cohort, but once I was a week in, I knew for fact the accelerated pace of finishing in 5 months was not going to be realistic for the way I function. I asked right away to be transferred to the part time cohort so I would have more time to really absorb the lessons, practice the methods more, and feel like I’m not just scraping the surface with every new concept I am learning. I really want to do well and make the most of my time and money going into this program, so I stand by that decision even if that means I graduate 5 months later. I really do believe that this life changing decision is going to greatly impact the rest of my future. I’m excited and anxious to continue on but I know nothing great ever comes easy. I know I can make it if I am diligent and motivated enough and I have a lot of support from my family and friends. I want to be apart of something I know has the ability to make a positive impact on our community as well as be continuously evolving and I know the tech industry does exactly that.