As a kid, I spent much of time doing the average things, such as
playing video games, playing competitive sports, and hanging out
with friends. I am a first generation American with my parents
immigrating from Belarus in the 1990s. Coming from a family with
deep history in soccer and swimming, I began playing these
sports at a young age. I played soccer until I was about 13.
Around the age of 12, I had a knee injury that caused me to miss
about 6 months of play time. Directly after this, I began
experiencing growing pains leading me to be diagnosed with
patellofemoral pain syndrome, essentially rendering my knee caps
as loose. After this injury, I turned to swimming, which I
honestly disliked very much at a young age. I swam competitively
from the age of 12 until I was 18 and graduated high school, and
I began to take it very seriously around the age of 15. But,
growing up I was always fascinated by how things worked. I
always wanted to know how every day items, such as an iPhone
touch screen or a computer password, worked internally and
appreciated how they made our lives easier. Thinking to myself,
how does the pizza order my parents just put online got to the
pizza place and the employees knew exactly what I wanted, or how
is my mom able to go on these work calls with people across the
world? I never thought I could follow a career path that would
allow me to work directly with topics such as these, and
fortunately enough, I was able to involve myself in my childhood
wonders.
