My name is Ross, and I’m a graduate of Ryerson University with a Bachelor of Science in Nursing. I solely worked in the Emergency Room for the last 6 years, 3 years as a clerk, and 3 years as a Registered Nurse. In my spare time, I self-taught computer science concepts and personal projects.
I participated in the Open Source track of the Major League Hacking (MLH) Fellowship twice. Through the program, I worked on the open source project Node.js with Jordan Harband from the Open Source Security Foundation.
My Average Day as an MLH Fellow
During the MLH Fellowship, I had 3 weekly stand ups and 1 weekly retrospective. In the beginning, a majority of my day involved reading over my project’s source code and reviewing their issues to try and understand the project better.
I was confused but after several weeks with help from my mentor, I was able to start putting the pieces together! After I got more comfortable, I would either review code, run some test cases or reach out to my project lead or peers for support.
Impact on My Career Growth
For my project, I migrated testing logic from one repo to another repo to increase the test coverage by over 100%. Through the program, I learned the following:
- How to read a large code base and project.
- Understand the larger impact my code has on the world and the technologies it touches.
- If you don’t know something, ask early and fail fast. The faster you fail, the faster you can iterate your learning process!
I am now able to parse through a large code base, ask focused questions to the right people, and find my solution faster and more effectively. From a career growth perspective, the MLH Fellowship has helped me land a couple of interviews with tech companies but due to current working conditions, it has been a little difficult.
Currently, I am part of the Microsoft LEAP Software Engineering Apprenticeship program working in Security Engineering. The MLH Fellowship has definitely helped me crush the bootcamp. I have applied all the knowledge and reflection skills I have gained in MLH at Microsoft and I have been flourishing since!
Interested in the MLH Fellowship?
The environment at MLH was very inviting and inspiring. From the beginning, I felt like I was meant to belong, and any doubt about myself was addressed by the project managers.
For more information about the MLH Fellowship and to apply for the program, visit our website here. Stay connected with Ross on LinkedIn here!