The family moved to the capital the following year, and I transferred into a more rigorous school. I doubled down on math including calculus, advanced functions, and physics, and took my first formal computer science course. At that point, Python was the only language I knew.

For my final project, I had to build a Trivia web app requiring HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and Django, none of which I had ever touched. With some trial and error and a bit of sibling mentorship, I got it working and placed in the top three of my class. A year later, I was invited back to mentor younger students on web development with Django.

I was undecided between Aerospace Engineering and Artificial Intelligence going into university. I ultimately chose Carleton for Computer Science, AI/ML stream, with a minor in Mathematics and Statistics. Freshman year was a steep learning curve. University moves at a completely different pace from high school: you have the freedom to skip classes, skip assignments, and study on your own schedule, with no one watching over you. But with a lot of freedom comes a lot of responsibility.

Second year went deeper into core computer science concepts: systems programming, pointers, memory allocation, data structures and algorithms, skip lists, red-black trees, and combinatorics, each year getting harder than the last. The one thing university taught me, especially in third year, was time management. If you do not learn to manage your time, university will force you to.

I have been blessed to make the Dean's List and Golden Key Honor Society every year since my first semester. My co-ops took me through Ford, where I learned the critical importance of testing in embedded systems, then Caterpillar for DevOps pipelines, the Government of Canada where I got my first real foothold into the field of Data, and by God's grace, Toronto Dominion Bank for a last co-op. Whether it is satellite software, production ML, or cloud infrastructure, I am always eager for opportunities to push what I can build.