At a young age my parents amicably split up and after a few years my mother met my future stepdad. Thankfully for me, he was a Cuban immigrant who learned the hard way education was the key to success. Pushing these core values on me, he never let me take a day off from school. Being an engineer for the city of NY, he valued math over every school subject which would prove pivotal for my future.
Through their divorce, my parents remained friends which afforded me the opportunity to spend a lot of time with my biological father, who had a knack for electronics and computers. Unlike my stepdad, my biological father did not care too much for school, but realized quickly he could make a good living if he learned computers, so he did. A lot of my early memories of my father are tinkering with electronics and solving different problems. Admiring this and wanting to learn as much as a I could from him was another pivotal moment.
Growing up with both of these men in my life, I was able to learn computers and math at a young age. Entering high school, I learned they offered a vocational program which allowed me to skip elective classes, instead learning about computer repair and networking. After high school, I enrolled in a for-profit college which taught network security and server administration. Having skipped a couple grades in middle school and fast tracking through college, I found myself with 5 years of computer education and a diploma at the age of 18, which gave me a huge advantage as I entered the workforce and was a catalyst to my success so far. As I sit back and reflect on this, I can not thank my parents or teachers enough for the success they have brought me.
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