Will Flowers

About Me

Hello future employers! My name is Will Flowers, and I am looking for a Junior/Associate position in Software Development, or Web Application Development that will allow me to work in the Denver area. I am a 2024 grad of State Technical College of Missouri, one of the most highly rated Technical Colleges in the nation. You can find more information on State Technical College on their website here, and here is a page dedicated to their accolades and why they are the "Employer's Choice". During the Summer before and through my last year of education, I kept up with an internship for the State of Missouri. During this internship, I worked on the Information Technology Services Division (ITSD), specifically on their Web Development Team.

I also have multiple hobbies to keep me entertained. Now that a large majority of my friends live in different cities, we tend to spend a lot of our free time playing video games together. That being said, I am an avid consumer of both single player story games and multiplayer games. When I am with a group in person, I prefer to play in depth board games like Fury of Dracula or Ankh. When I am on my own, I enjoy learning how to play bass guitar, listening to music, reading, and the occasional session of drawing.

Education

I started my post-secondary education in Fall of 2018 at Truman State University. I started as a Music Education major, Mathematics Minor, eventually learned after first semester that graduating in four years would be extremely taxing, so I dropped the Mathematics minor. After pursuing this degree for three semesters, I started losing my passion for playing music and decided to switch majors to Computer Science. The downside with this change, is that it was Spring Semester 2020, which is when the pandemic hit, and there was a lot of confusion with how to continue education. This rocky start to the Computer Science major pushed me to transfer to State Technical College of Missouri in order to get my Associates degree.

About State Tech

Duration: Fall 2022-Spring 2024

State Technical College of Missouri, formerly Linn Technical College, prides themselves in being "The Employer's Choice". Even though State Tech only has Associate degree programs, all of their Courses are rooted in hands-on learning. This hands-on learning was a huge benefit to me as that is how I learn best. During their Computer Application Development program, I learned how to create and style my own webpage using HTML and CSS, and eventually learned how to create applications with JavaScript and utilize a SQL database using PHP. On top of web development, we were taught how to create a C# application using the .Net Framework. We mainly created terminal applications, but we were also taught how to build a gui using Visual Studio. The second year of the program really focused on Mobile Application Development, so we learned how to use Objective C for iOS applications, and we also used Java to build applications for Android.

Outside of languages, we also learned basic skills that would be needed, or at the very least helpful in the workplace. We had a class on the basics of Project Management, and learned about Agile and Scrum project techniques. Our Security class taught us how important secure code is and taught us the basic principles of keeping our code efficient and secure.

About Truman State

Duration: Fall 2018-Spring 2022

During my short career as a Computer Science major at Truman State University, I was taught a few languages, those being C++, Java, C, and Assembly. C and Assembly were taught in the same class, and we learned C first, and then taught how to go from C to Assembly and vice versa. It was at Truman that I started learning how to code from scratch, and I found out I really enjoyed, but in a different way that I enjoyed playing music, so it didn't bother me doing it at a professional level. The classes at Truman were much more in depth than at State Tech, but I struggled with them as there was a lot more 'theory' in the lectures and less hands-on learning that allowed me to apply what was taught.

What I Learned Overall

After completing my Associate's at State Technical College, I can confidently say that I have a solid foundation for most, if not all languages. This foundation will allow me to be able to jump head first into more complicated processes and will allow me to understand them better. I also learned the best way for me to learn, which is hands-on training/on the job training. This method stuck with me much better than classic lecturing did, and is why I am confident I will be able to succeed at whatever job I get offered.

Experience

Information Technology Services Division (ITSD) Intern

I have a full year of professional experience as an Intern for the State of Missouri, primarily doing web development.

Company: State of Missouri
Start Date/End Date: June 1, 2023/May 31, 2024

Description: I was a part of the Office of Administration's internship program, working within the ITSD Web Development Team. As a part of the team itself, I primarily worked on tickets sent in by the various divisions within the Office of Administration. Most of my job consisted of staying on top of requested changes and using my skills in HTML and PHP to update content accordingly. I also worked within their WordPress team and managed mutltiple sites. I gained a lot of experience working in WordPress, and getting exposure to multiple Plug-Ins that help to streamline the development cycle. I was also briefly intoduced to Drupal as a Content Management System.

The nice thing about the ITSD Internship is that the recruiter had a meeting planned every week to give us more exposure to the different types of jobs within the Office of Administration. This included giving us the opportunity to tour the Database and talk to the team there. There was representative with the Department of Geospatial Information who came in and talked to the Interns about what they do there, and this meeting made me want to shadow someone in the Office of Geospatial Information to learn more about that Technology.