Cohort Stories: Meet Peter
vol. 5, no. 73 — guest post by Peter Arias
I am proud of my accomplishments to date. To me, something that I’m genuinely proud of is being born into a Dominican family and being able to identify as Dominican. I’ve visited the Dominican Republic a handful of times to visit family and while I was there, I noticed a plethora of things that make me proud of my culture. It’s a social culture embodied by happy, loud, and passionate people living life like a party. They seek to give themselves to others and share a smile, even during challenging times.
No matter the hardships the people of my culture endure, they always find a way to celebrate. It’s inspiring and motivating. I resonate with these cultural values in my day-to-day life. It’s made me a more positive and collaborative person. It’s motivated me to be eager to learn, seek opportunities, and accept challenges.
It’s made me realize that I’m superior to negative thoughts and low actions.
Technology sparked my interest when I was a young kid. I remember when I was roughly 11 years old, playing a game called Habbo, a social world-building game and online community. As I was playing one day, a player was advertising their private server that mimics that style of the game, so I checked it out. Soon after, I decided to create my own. This sporadic advertiser soon led to my interest in coding. After doing some research and getting help from people I met in the online community, I was able to put together my own private server and website. Throughout this process, I dabbled with PHP and HTML sparking my interest in coding. In the Fall of 2015, I decided to pursue a Computer Science degree. At the time, I knew I wanted to be involved in the tech scene. Although, I wasn’t sure what career path to take, I was curious to know what was out there.
Being the first person in my family to go to college and the first person in my family to get involved in tech, I didn’t have much guidance and I was figuring a lot of it out on my own, but I did have a lot of support from my family. This support encouraged me to learn, try out new technologies, and seek opportunities to improve my skills.
Benjamin Franklin once said, “An investment in knowledge pays the best interest.” This is a quote I think applies to everything in life.
Being a part of the Hack.Diversity Cohort is an opportunity for me to invest in myself and my career. It allows me to get out of my comfort zone.
As nerve-wracking as interviewing and presentations can be for me, I have to combat that, and being a part of this Cohort allows me to do so. Being surrounded by diverse people who all have a unique background and are interested in technology truly excites me. I’m excited to collaborate with these people and create everlasting memories that I hope will be some of the best experiences in my life. Hack.Diversity is an opportunity for me to learn new skills, refine my current skillset, and see what the tech scene is like in the real world.
