Holberton School & the Three Engineers, Part 3: The Experienced

This is an ongoing series of interviews with Holberton students sharing their journey through the program. Holberton students come from many different backgrounds. These interviews are an inside look at each student’s unique journey into software engineering.

 

Mason: The Experienced, Have Your Cake and Eat It Too
Mason joined Holberton School with considerably more experience in software engineering compared with Dora and Rona.

 

Q: How did you hear about Holberton School?

Mason: My mother’s friend from work had heard about Holberton and she knew that I was interested in some type of computer science education.

 

Q: What was your experience with computer science?

Mason: I had already been teaching myself computer science for about a full year starting with just html, css, javascript, a little bit of php, and eventually I began studying python. It was just a hobby I had gotten into on the side. I actually had a job teaching guitar.

 

Q: Did you study music in school?

Mason: I did! My bachelor’s and master’s degrees are both from music conservatories. After graduating, I had worked for 5 years as a professional musician. My primary income came from teaching, which I didn’t enjoy nearly as much as the performing I also did, and I figured if I could replace my teaching day job with work as a software engineer then that would be ideal, especially since my interest in that field had already grown so much. Conveniently, San Francisco is a great city to be employed in that kind of work and also offers several educational opportunities for that type of position. I also thought that this career would allow me to maintain the performance side of my music career, which is still very dear to me.

 

Q: Why were you drawn to computer science?
Mason: I was drawn to computer science because the kinds of problems that you solve as a software engineer are actually really, really similar to the problems you solve as a music performer. People tend to think of music as a very right-brain, creative sort of activity and they think of software engineering as a left-brain analytical activity but the truth is that both… are both! I started out teaching myself online. That’s where I first learned about HTML, CSS… just what I needed to know to build a very simple static website.

 

Q: What was the reaction from your friends and family when you made this unexpected career pivot?

Mason: My father is a musician and my mother and my brother are both engineers. My mom is a software engineer and my brother is an electrical engineer. My other brother is a mathematician…so there’s a lot of music, math, and engineering in my family and none of them were terribly surprised, although I think my parents were a little concerned that I was letting go of music. My friends, especially the other members of my ensemble, were especially concerned about disbanding. I just had to explain to them that I was looking to replace the teaching portion of my music, not the performance aspect.

 

Q: Do you think that you’ve been able to maintain a balance between your music and your new career?

Mason: Perhaps these careers are easily balanced by everyone, or I may just be especially lucky that I have been able to keep a balance between the two. My manager I has brought up that it’s really important to her that I’m able to keep a balance between my music and my software careers, and I am very grateful for that.

 

Q: Do you think Holberton was able to dive deeper into languages you had previous experience with?

Mason: There was definitely a lot of validation. When you’re learning stuff all on your own, you don’t know how accurate the information is. Until you’re learning from and talking to industry professionals. Being able to communicate well with other students and mentors was validating in itself. I think that’s one of the strongest aspects of Holberton, and the mentor side of the program really strengthens that. It’s a curriculum that’s very adaptable. There are so many opportunities to go beyond the minimum requirements of an assignment. I tried to do every assignment and optional assignments. I liked that flexibility, and it absolutely enabled me to deepen my previously superficial comp-sci knowledge.

 

Q: Tell me a little about your experience with Holberton School mentor program.

Mason: The biggest benefit I got from the mentor program during my first year was the coordinated events: the fireside chats, and the workshops. Hearing professionals talk about technical knowledge helped me think about technology in a different way. To develop fluency in any field you really need to be immersed around other experts, adopt their language, and to an extent adopt the way they think about the subject. The mentor program facilitates that very well.

 

 

Q: What is your role at Docker?

Mason: I am a full-stack software engineer on the Distribution Services team at Docker, Inc. I help build and maintain the SaaS-related back-end services that enable users to use the Docker platform. I also work on the front-end of the Docker Store.