aboutMe.txt

My name is Drew Reese and I'm a 2017 graduate of the Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science & Engineering at the University of Washington, Seattle. I was born in Augsburg, Germany, grew up in the Illinois, and now reside in the Seattle area with my wife and two children.  I'm currently a junior Software Development Engineer at Hoylu, primarily working on developing Andoid/iOS mobile and Web applications that tie into their existing software experience.  Being 100% responsible for the design and implementation of a product prototype has been a positive and rewarding experience so far and I'm really excited in the process.
I settled in Washington after serving in the Navy for seven years both onboard a submarine and a carrier. After separating from the military, and working several low wage jobs, I decided to put the G.I Bill I earned to good use and go back to school to finish earning a degree in Computer Science.
My passion for programming started in 1995 during my sophomore year of high school when I decided to take a QBASIC programming class. I was immediately "hooked", and it was one of the first times in my life where I honestly felt like I knew my place in the world. I absorbed as much as I possibly could. Two semesters of QBASIC and two semesters of Pascal later I knew what I wanted to do when I grew up. Thank you Mr. Deters!
Sometime between when knowing what I wanted to do and now, life got a little crazy and I ended up joining the military with the intentions of "Doing my four years" and getting out to go to college. I ended up serving seven years total; three on a submarine, one as a volunteer augmentee with the Army, and the last three on a carrier. It was time for me to move on and get back to my plan.
I earned an Associate's degree from Olympic College, Bremerton, Washington before transferring to the Computer Science & Engineering Department (now the Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science and Engineering) at the University of Washington.  I graduated and earned my Bachelor's of Science in Computer Science June 2017.  I then interned at Hoylu over the Summer before being brought on full-time.
My three years at UW CSE were truly eye opening and amazing. The biggest thing I've figured out is that the more I've learned about software design, the more I've realized there is so much more out there for me that I don't know yet. This is simultaneously a daunting and exciting endeavor for me.  My education has continued at Hoylu with fellow coders and mentors.
Along with my academic interests in databases and back-end systems, a secondary interest is in graphics. It's a happy coincidence that I get to apply some of my graphics knowledge Hoylu.  Other aspects of software design that have interested me in the past include: text and graphical games, autonomous vehicles, and productivity applications.