From drop-out to backpacker to self-taught developer with Dominick Monaco [Podcast #183]

On this week's episode of the podcast, freeCodeCamp founder Quincy Larson interviews Dominick Monaco. He dropped out college to hike the Appalachian Trail, a 2,200 mile backpacking route across the US. After working in nature conservation for 3 years, he taught himself how to program and now works as a developer. We talk about: - Life working as a Yogi Bear-style forest ranger in training - Close brushes with death in the wilderness and how it affects you - Learning programming for a grand total of $15 - How surrounding yourself with other ambitious learners can help you learn programming faster Support for this podcast comes from a grant from Wix Studio. Wix Studio provides developers tools to rapidly build websites with everything out-of-the-box, then extend, replace, and break boundaries with code. Learn more at https://wixstudio.com. Support also comes from the 11,189 kind folks who support freeCodeCamp through a monthly donation. You can join these chill human beings and help our charity's mission by going to https://donate.freecodecamp.org Links we talk about during our conversation: - Dominick's blog article on how he got here: https://dominickjmona.co/blog/how-i-got-here - Dominick on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dominick-j-monaco/ - Americorps conservation core: https://www.americorps.gov/