Jake Christmas

Background

About Jake Christmas

I have two core memories from elementary school: getting told (often) that I'm too talkative, and that once I get involved in an assignment or book that I can rarely put it down. Throughout my life I've learned that these aren't detractors, but strengths. I joined speech and debate in high school and found a love of public speaking in student congressional debate, and I focused my passion for reading and problem solving into a love for literature, creative writing, and story telling. If you had told eight-year-old Jake that he would be writing software in college, he would have probably said,"I don't know what that is, but I want to be an artist or an architect!" But life has a way of throwing us curve balls. And I was in for a big one when I took my first programming course in college. I immediately fell in love with developing (and yes, even debugging) software! It combines my love of focused problem solving with my passion for creativity, and I firmly believe that the best developers not only write code, but work tirelessly and creatively to understand their code and attempt novel solutions far outside the proverbial box. During my time as a an Undergraduate Teaching Assistant I was able to leverage my reading and communication skills to understand and address student's assignments. Any good developer should be able to parse a freshman programming assignment - trust me, it makes good practice. You'll often find me observing how people work and communicate, staring at a whiteboard covered in flowcharts and half-finished functions, browsing the web reading about the latest space and tech trends, or obsessing over the latest video game that has captured my multifaceted attention.