Background/Education:

-Saint Mary's College of Maryland, where I studied Biology as well as Computer Science, the latter in which I recieved my Bachelor's Degree
-Full Stack Coding Bootcamp with The George Washington University

Skills:

-Javascript, HTML, CSS, Bootstrap, Java, SQL, Node.js, Git, Github, Express, React.js, MongoDB, Agile, Axios, Handlebars, Sequelize, Firebase
-Communication, collaboration, managing, planning, designing

Hobbies/Interests:

Tennis, videogames (league of legends - season five diamond, hearthstone, starcraft, minecraft, halo, my favorite singleplayer experience was Subnautica), working out, tea, coffee, watching cooking shows, cooking!, watching twitch.tv, Also pondering, too much pondering that's why i need work! Hire me please!

Past Work:

Trader Joe's Crewmember, CVS Health Clerk, College Resident Assistant, College IT Office phone support, Retail Supervisor, Tennis Coach/Camp Counselor for the YMCA, Family Avocado Farm Ranchhand

favorite games: halo, warcraft 3, league of legends, subnautica, chess, hearthstone, pokemon silver, clash of clans, skyrim, minecraft passion for games- when i was a senior in college, i hit diamond in league of legends. This is a pretty big milestone for me and i could talk for hours about how i achieved it it was only through an extensive knowledge of the game, lots of watching professional matches, a competitive drive to win, fast hand eye coordination, awareness of all the variables going on the in game and killer instinct. it was also wanting to prove something (okay kev calm down! -2023 update). to myself and some friends at the school and my friends back home who also played. i sort of isolated myself for those years of my life and had some identity struggles and league of legends was something i held on to. when i finally hit diamond in season 5 i was playiny nunu and kogmaw back in the cinderhulk meta. these arent very mechanically intensive champions, i relied on how smart i was being with my abilities, how i used them in tandem with what my opponents and allies were doing, amrt team fight tactics, and good team communication. hitting it made me feel like i could really do anything. like i was good at something. i was always really good at halo too, i just like getting into my own little world and focusing on something exciting and games always did that for me when i was young, like an escape when i could prove myself. i started out playing halo with my older two brothers after middle school - we'd go to my oldest bros friends house and do four player split screen halo and take turns giving up the controller when we die. it got my into competitive gaming. later on i started becoming fascinated with single player games too like minecraft and skyrim, both of which just have incredible music, always gets me. a game that can either totally put you in zen mode with the amount of concentration required to perform competitively, or just fascinate you with beautiful immersion - these are my two types of games. and it doesn't need incredible realistic graphic, design is most important. that emergent property where it feels like you are still connected to something beautiful when you are playing, and not just going through some simple loop or story line, but have freedom. ive been playing games all my life - i hope one day to get the chance to work on games, whether any aspect of coding, or maybe cooler yet design choices and story choices, balance choices as well

projects:
Dreamshift - In college myself and two classmates, using c# and a library called monogame, developed a 2D pc video game. It is a puzzle adventure game and when you press shift the world changes a bit - goes dark(dreamy) - and little things on the map change that require your attention in order to affect the other world and ultimately progress through the game. My friend back in the day was the main coder, I was the co-lead designer of levels, implemented the pause feature as well as GUI setup like window and button design and size. I also lead the game demos and talks we had to give the class throughout the semester, and scheduled team meetings to work on the project. I also was the git master and okayed all the pushes to master branch, sitting next to my teammates for countless hours and encouraging each other. Java Pizza Ordering GUI to be used by a pizza company to input and calculate orders - I was the sole team member responsible for making the GUI on this project. Back in college due to lack of focus I ended up using a tool that allowed me to drag and drop buttons instead of writing the code myself, but in the end it worked. I passed it off to my teammate who lined all the buttons up with his mathy code to calculate the cost of the order etc) and viola. If I could do it again I would make an interface that was more consistent looking when clicking through to the next page so as not to confuse users as to where they should be looking, and I’d also be more transparent with my teammates (this goes for both projects) and more hard working. Personal Website (https://kevinspies.github.io/portfolio/index.html) - This one I’m still working on and have plans to really pour my life thoughts and feelings into - sort of my hub. I’m proud of it because it’s a great start to my journey, has a couple little projects but nothing major, simple javascript and jQuery stuff. Like a lot of my past projects it is a little disheveled but my plan is as I keep working on job applications and my confidence and knowledge in the field, to make the code really feel like my own thoughts - to a point where I have command over it, and can start putting up some stuff that really excites me.