About Me

My name is Kirk Schnable. I was born in 1992, and I generally refer to myself as a computer enthusiast since age 8. I don't think it is accurate to say I "became" interested in technology, because it's something I always remember enjoying. My first computer was an Apple IIe, handed down to me from my mother, which I used heavily until I obtained my first 486 computer, running MS-DOS 6.22 and Microsoft Windows 3.11. It was on the Apple IIe, and on MS-DOS using QuickBasic, that I first learned to program in BASIC.

Throughout my late grade school and entire high school careers, programming was an interest of mine. In particular, I took a liking to PHP, because of its similarities to BASIC, and its ability to create complex dynamic web pages. During this part of my life, I did not have any formal educational resources available for teaching me computer programming; my grade school only had a typing class and my high school had a single programming class in Visual Basic. So, it was necessary for me to adopt some autodidacticism.

I evolved as a self-taught web programmer in HTML before entering high school, and self-taught PHP programmer during high school. I worked passionately on personal websites and websites for my social organizations, and the continued interest and investment of my time and effort continued to pay off as I moved through high school and my programming skills became more refined.

Through the second half of my high school career, I assisted the technology department as a volunteer student helper, gaining exposure to real world applications of technology in a production environment. I was afforded multiple opportunities to write production PHP code, during which time my attention toward security and code documentation was coming to light. Through further education, I became the go-to person there for SQL scripting as well.

As I began to work with multiple web projects, I became interested in server administration and began to familiarize myself with Linux systems. With time and experience, I became exceedingly more comfortable on Linux systems due to the availability of advanced settings and a real framework to troubleshoot and fix problems. I now am primarily a Linux user, and use Windows more on an as-needed basis.

I completed the bachelor's of science degree program at Roosevelt University with a major in computer science, graduating with high honors in 2014.

I am excited about the prospects the future holds, and look forward to the challenges ahead.