Well I was born in American Samoa in 1987, at the age of two my mother migrated my brother and I over to New Zealand, I have lived through many stages of life including on the streets and had worked in various jobs such as, crew member to a shift manager at McDonalds, pick/packer for a stationary company, storeman for an air-conditioning company in Brisbane, Australia, cook for KFC in Brisbane, Australia, apprentice carpenter for Aspec Construction, fabricator/painter/roofer for Exeloo, driver/product installer for Screens R us. I married the love of my life at the age of 26, in 2023 we celebrated our 10 year wedding anniversary, we bought our first home in 2022. Throughout my years, I never really knew what it was that I wanted to do, I was always looking to be the best at what I was doing at the time but I never really saw myself doing the jobs I was doing as a full time career. It wasn't until I started to get into virtual gaming that I began to see myself enjoying a lot of time behind a computer screen, but I still did not know what I wanted to do and how I was going to get myself into a role that could lead me into the role that I would love to do. I began researching what I needed and needed to do which took longer than I had expected; but I am here now towards the end of my level two paper in Computing and Problem Solving also looking forward to securing a job in any helpdesk role capacity.

I began looking for how to start this new chapter of my life back in 2020, I knew I had to start for the bottom again but I needed a goal first, I needed to know what it was that I wanted to be; after starting over, that was the tough part, did I want to be a software developer, did I want to do security, etc. What do I want to do? Once I figured out what it is that I could see myself doing, I began to dive deeper into that role I spent many months to possibly a year just researching that role making sure it is what I want to and could see myself do for the next 30-40 working years of my life. The next step was to look for a course that I could do part time and preferrable through correspondence so that I could continue working full time. I had looked around until I found the ICT courses at Open Polytechnic which was perfect for my situation and the opportunities that come with it. Learning again has been a real challenge, as it requires you to almost forget everything you thought you knew and open your mind to things you need to know, the good thing about Open Polytechnic that I have found is the resources that are available to you, even though it is correspondence you still have access to the online library, student mentors and tutors, the reception staff are also great as I have had to call in for extra help and they were able to direct me to the right people without hassle. I have had a rough year this year (2024) and was hospitalized a number of times and a couple of times I have had to stay in for a month, which meant that I have had to apply for extensions on my papers and the staff were willing to grant me special circumstance due to my situation, which put me behind towards my goal again but the staff have been real supportive, so overall my learning journey has been a rough one before and through, but with the right team; I am able to see this through and I; undoubtably believe the same for whoever is going through a similar process.