I've had a non-traditional career journey. Long ago, I was a whole foods chef and found myself in upstate New York. The cost of living is lower, but you need a few jobs to make things work.

I saw a banner ad for Lambda School, and was interested in machine learning, data science, and artificial intelligence. I started trying to study it on my own and discovered I couldn't teach myself and could waste a lot of time trying to trying to find the right tutorial.

When I found out Lambda would let me sign an Income Share Agreement, I was like,

"That sounds fair… If the instruction isn't up to par and I don't get a job, I don't have to pay anything? I'm just gonna apply and see."

I'm working for Lambda School while looking for other opportunities. The work is difficult and I don't have a roadmap, but data science is young and it surprises me how open people have been to the skills I got at Lambda. I do go where my curiosity takes me and I feel I have a new set of skills now.