Geek, to Designer, to Consultant, Fire Dancer, & Coach
/My time in high school
Attended high school in the
2000s
Overall high school experience
8/10
Grades in high school
Mostly A's
Favorite subjects
Computer Science / Engineering / Technical, Science
Favorite extracurricular
Technology
Life since high school
“[My biggest regrets are: ]
Not starting to freelance sooner; I stayed with fulltime jobs because I was afraid of it.
Not pushing harder with my coaching business, because I was afraid of failure. ”
Attended college / university at
2001-2005 UC Irvine
Majored in
B.S. Information & Computer Science
Post-graduate education or training
2007-2009 Stanford, M.S. Human-Computer Interaction
Places lived in US
California
Places lived outside the US
2 months in Madrid, Spain
Current occupations / past occupations
Engineer, User Experience Designer, Fire Dancer, Costume Maker, Burning Man Camp organizer
Industries I've worked in
- Information (e.g. Publishing, Film, Broadcast, Telecommunications, Libraries)
- Arts, Entertainment, and Recreation
Has your education or career/occupation trajectory ever changed? How?
Yes, assumed I'd be an engineer for life. That changed and then I went to grad school.
A little introspection...
To me, being successful means...
Having enough money to live, having a decent savings account and investments, and doing a job that I'm passionate about.
My definition of success has not changed over time.
My greatest accomplishment to date and what I’ve learned from it
1. Fire dancing on stage for a crowd of roughly 5,000 people. (Prior to learning fire dancing, I'd never been a performer, let alone a dancer.) 2. Leaving a company and starting to freelance. 3. Starting my own company to provide coaching for online dating.
My biggest mistake or regret so far and what I’ve learned from it
Not starting to freelance sooner; I stayed with fulltime jobs because I was afraid of it.
Not pushing harder with my coaching business, because I was afraid of failure.
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