30 Years Professional Coding Experience

Michael S.

I grew up in the 1970s and 1980s building computers from scratch with my electrical engineer father. I then went off to college at the University of Minnesota where I majored in history. I started getting work computer programming based on my experience and hands-on knowledge. Before long, I had lucked into a programming career. I like to say that my career path was just like Bill Gates' except for the multi-billionaire part. Over the course of my career I have co-authored two books in my field: "Multitool Linux: Practical Uses for Open Source Software" and "Java Application Development on Linux"

A colleague of mine invited me to be an adjunct at Hennepin Technical College, where I taught courses in Intrusion Detection and Incident Response. Late in my career I finally decided to deal with my lack of a degree, and I completed a Bachelor of Science in Information Technology - Software in 2018. So I had the career first and the degree second. I love both learning and teaching. I have a great deal of patience with and understanding of students who find some material easy and other material difficult. I believe that learning how to program doesn't mean learning any particular language or system because these change over the length of a career. It is about learning to think analytically. While I am ready to teach several tools and languages, in all of them, my focus is on how to think creatively about a problem, and how to imagine a technical solution.

I have 30 years of professional programming experience. I have written two technical books. I have taught community college courses on computer security. I am a relatively recent college graduate, so I'm much closer to the student experience than most seasoned professionals.

My favorite thing to do is to solve problems. If you need help learning programming or an operating system, I can help you. Please contact me through Wyzant and let's see if I can help you get where you need to go!