Matthew Went From Out Of Funds Actor To Successful Software Developer

“I grew up in a small town in South Dakota,” Matthew remembered, “I was always interested in tech, but the arts were strangely more accessible. I did a lot of community theater and thought, ‘I’m going to be an actor.’ The path seemed pretty laid out, I didn’t go to college since I didn’t need it for acting and it didn’t make sense to be in debt. After I spent some time in Chicago doing some legit theater, I made a plan to move to LA and break into movies. Then I went to LA and everything kind of hit me in the face. Upon a lot of self-reflection, I realized that it might have been my dream at one point, but acting really wasn’t anymore. I had to find a new journey.”

Luckily for Matthew, the arts weren’t his only passion, “I wish I could remember the first day I bought an online course in code, but it happened organically for me. As a kid I wasn’t allowed to have a gaming console, so I had to find creative ways to play video games online which lead to me spending a lot of time on the computer. About five years ago, I built my own PC for gaming, and I must’ve stumbled upon an online advertisement for coding or something, because I started going online to do algorithm challenges or Fibonacci sequences where you have to do code, and I remember thinking that I really liked that. I started exploring more resources online, which lead to me making websites for friends that weren’t overly complicated but you’d have some custom CSS or Javascript. When I decided to give up acting, it seemed like a logical switch to become a coder.”