The following is the script from 6.4 Fellow John Jay Jones’s speech at his Gong Ceremony, a Pursuit tradition when graduated Fellows celebrate landing a full-time tech job with their families, friends, colleagues, and our community cheering them on. Watch John deliver his speech and ring the gong in the video below.
This is his transformation story, in his words.
Before I start, to put a disclaimer out there, if you see me get really excited or very animated it's because I am used to giving presentations to 12 year olds! So if I start waving my hands too much or just doing a lot it's because in my mind I'm giving a presentation to my students.
Hello everyone, my name is John Jones, also known as Jay Jones. I am from the 6.4 full-stack cohort, and it is with great pleasure to announce that I am the Engineering Apprentice at Etsy!
Being a Fellow and now alumni of Pursuit, I can say it is certainly a great honor. Through Pursuit I was able to make some friendships that will last a lifetime. With my cohort we were able to work together, collaborate together, learn together, and even curse out our computers together! I hope that when Covid is over that we can all get together again!
Where to start...
Growing up, I always had a passion for technology. I was always interested in using technology to make everyone's life easier.
When I was younger I was known as the person you go to when you wanted a movie, music, video games, and pretty much anything to do with technology. I was your guy. As I got older I knew I would need to learn code because I wanted to create applications and games of my own! So I went to college and graduated with a bachelor’s in Computer Information Systems.
In my experience though, my college did not prepare me to be an engineer or developer. My senior year of college I had the worst job interview of my life! The position was for a software engineering summer internship. When I arrived at the interview I was greeted with a whiteboard/technical interview! I had no Idea what white boarding was. So I sat in a room for 10 minutes trying to solve a technical problem on a piece of paper like it was a test, with this interviewer looking over me wondering why I wasn't talking.
I remember leaving that interview saying “I will never code again!”
After that experience I applied for an internship with the DOE as a help desk technician. While I was working in PS 223 as a help desk tech, a principal from another school loved the way I worked and the way I interacted with the students. He offered me a job to come and work at his school as a Technology Specialist for his school! After a few months of being at the school, the principal then made me the head Technology Teacher & After School Programs STEM Instructor .
I was teaching my students how to build and program robots, design and print 3D drawings, and create games using drag and drop code. Here I fell in love with coding again and wanted to learn how to create real applications.
I then began a hunt for coding programs. I went to a couple open houses and the last one I went to was at Pursuit! I remember listening to the fellows who were about to complete their cohort and the excitement they had and great things they said about Pursuit. I loved what I heard and was interested in joining but there was a conflict with the schedules that Pursuit had. Because I was a full time teacher I couldn't attend the day sessions, and because of my religion I couldn’t attend the nights and weekend sessions!
After the open house I went and talked to Tali (Director of Business Operations) to ask her if there was some sort of hybrid program. Tali told me no, but she would contact Jukay (co-founder & CEO) and she’ll email me if there is anything that they can do for me. I left thinking that I would never hear back from Tali and I had given up on my engineering dream. Two days later, I received an email from Tali saying “Great News! They will do something that they never done before, record the classes for the days that I would not be able to attend.” Though the classes will be recorded for me and I will miss a crucial day of the program which was Saturdays, I will still be expected to submit work and projects on time like any other Fellow. I told Tali that wouldn’t be a problem because I will work hard, and that’s exactly what I did!
Though our class schedule was Saturday-Wednesday and there was a break on Thursdays & Friday, I would work on code through Thursdays, Fridays and Saturday night to make sure I was not getting left behind. I remember the first day of Pursuit I felt like an imposter. I felt as if I might not be able to keep up with the work or that no one would want to be in a team with the guy who can’t come to class on a Saturday or work on projects on a Saturday. I was strongly mistaken. The cohort worked together with me despite me missing Saturday classes. The Fellows in my class served as a great support system to me by checking to make sure I was updated on what was going on in class on the days that I missed, and that I was always informed on what progress my teams would make on any project we were working on!
I always sit back and think about how far I’ve come in what seems like a short period of time.
Within these last two months I have been given the great opportunity to work with the great company known as Etsy! From the interviewing process, I knew that Etsy was a place that I wanted to start my engineering career! Unlike my worst technical interviewing experience, the engineers at Etsy made me feel comfortable and relaxed throughout the whole interviewing process. Etsy’s Mission statement and Identity is one that I love—”Keep Commerce Human”—which to me means that Etsy wants to create a product that helps others.
Though I love the mission statement of Etsy, I love the people there even more! Everyone at Etsy has made my journey in the industry as a first time software engineer a great one. Thank you DS Team. I’m humbled and grateful for this opportunity. But this is just the beginning, there’s still so much I want to learn and so much I want to do.
I would love to thank my family who were behind me the whole time and always supporting me. To my best friend Kadijah who is also a Pursuit Alumni and joined Pursuit together with me!
To the Pursuit staff, the 6.4 instructional team Corey, The Carolines, Jon, Jhenya, Celine & Alejo & to My cohort 6.4. Thank you for pushing me forward and helping me along the way, I really couldn't do it without you all!
I cannot forget to thank my mentor David Rappoport who has been with me every step of the way. David was my mentor within Pursuit and the mentorship was only to last about 4-6 weeks. I am proud to say that we continued our mentorship sessions long after that! David and I still meet once a month where he gives me guidance, motivation, advice and life lessons.
Also thank you to my fellow Apprentices who are also doing the Etsy Fellowship with me. You all have made it a pleasure to be there!
Thank you all for allowing me to be part of this amazing community.
This past year has not been an easy one, but I’d like to say that it will only get better! Remember to Fail Forward!!
Thank you all,
John Jones
