“Hope is not a strategy for success” - Doug Durham

This quote came out of my attendance at the Kansas City Developers Conference (KCDC), my first ever in person Dev conference.

Although I’ve attended several fantastic virtual conferences this year, there was something unique and wonderful about physically sitting in a room filled with like minded people. I attended so many engaging talks, most especially the talk on Go and another on Technical Writing which I (having a degree in Creative Writing) adored.

But to go back to the quote above. When the speaker first shared it during the conference I felt like it encapsulated my journey towards becoming an Engineer perfectly. For years I had wanted to get into the technical side of startups, and the higher I rose in Client Success the harder it became to switch careers and make my hope a reality.

But one day something clicked. I’d been teaching myself JavaScript for months when I had a moment of clarity. If I didn’t make the decision to leave and go back to school, I wasn’t sure I ever would. So I did. And for the last two years I’ve been working towards an Associates in Computer Science.

This last Spring I took a semester off to attend a Web Development Bootcamp and found I loved Python, React, and Redux. When I graduated, I was in the final stages of interviewing for an internship located in Chicago, which sadly ended up being canceled just as I was accepted.

From there I brushed myself off and realized I was unique in being a digital nomad and a travel hacker. So why not go to conferences and spend my unemployed time traveling and meeting people?

Thus after receiving a generous student scholarship and using up my Alaska Airlines miles that had been sitting there collecting dust, I was able to attend my first conference, KCDC.

“Hope is not a strategy for success” has stuck with me ever since. I like to think of it as a gentle reminder to not get lost in the doom scrolling of cold-applications and to put myself outside my comfort zone more.

So a big thank you to KCDC for being a wonderful first in-person conference experience. I couldn't have asked for a better one!