I lived in a rural area of North Carolina. It used to be a big manufacturing area but a lot of the jobs moved out. There's a lot of drugs and crime and no other opportunities.

I took a web development course in high school, then attended community college and earned my associates degree. After graduation I had an internship building Windows Forms but couldn't keep up with the amount of work that was required. Community college hadn't prepared me for the real world.

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"I felt like I was just doomed to work retail forever. If I hadn't seen that Lambda ad, I'm not sure where I would be at this point. It's just completely changed my life for the better."

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Now I work at Nexient, which is where a lot of Lambda grads work as well. I'm a front end developer doing angular work. I was extremely nervous that I would have a repeat experience but it turned out that I knew everything I needed to know.

I still haven't gotten used to it but I'm living in Ann Arbor, 10 minutes away from the University of Michigan. I can walk downtown, do whatever I want. I'm still adjusting to life in the city, but I would definitely say it's a blessing.