Cohort Stories: Meet Derick
vol. 5, no. 25 — guest post by Derick Guerrier
My name is Derick Guerrier, and I was born in Haiti. I’m 45 years old, and I grew up in Haiti until I was about to turn 29, then I moved to the United States in 2004. My plan before I came to the US was to continue my education, get a Master’s Degree in Computer Science, improve my english, and be able to work in the IT field. Everything changed when my wife became pregnant with my first child. My priority then became my children. During my time living in the US, I did different types of jobs (US Army, food industry, retail, transportation). I was able to go back to school, using the Post 9/11 GI Bill, and get a Bachelor’s Degree in IT. Despite all this, I still wasn’t able to work in the field because of my priorities as a father and lack of experience.
After I finished high school back in Haiti, I wanted to study architecture. The school I was going to go to study at, however, required an exam. And, unfortunately, I wasn’t among the people who scored the highest on that exam. One of my best friends let me know about a school offering computer science degrees, and so I applied and I studied there from 1995 to 1999. That was where I fell in love with programming.
What caused me to enjoy programming is the fact that when you’re stuck writing a program and you struggle through it, the satisfaction you receive from seeing the program run is surreal.
Because of my priorities, however, I wasn’t able to stay connected to programming as much as I would like to, so I ended up focusing on other things to take care of my family and myself. I hope with Hack.Diversity I can find my passion for programming again.
My children are my main motivation, besides my belief in God. Being financially stable and supporting my family is something I’m trying to maintain, and the virtue of perseverance is something that I not only want to instill in my children, but I plan on using during my future career. My dream job would be a job that gives me the flexibility to exceed in doing it, while I can still find time for my family. I would love to be able to continue to grow in my field and not repeat the same thing over and over again everyday. It doesn’t even have to be programming, although that’s what I love the most from my previous experience in the IT field, but it can be something new that I enjoy doing. If not programming, I hope I’m able to find something during my time with Hack.Diversity that I’m passionate about and will help me reach my goals.
