Steamsport Alumni

Christopher Ballenger

How Are You?

(I’m good. Lol. I don’t know how to answer this one. Is it just where we are now?)

What Has Your STEAMsport Experience Been Like?

It was very fun! I remember going to the John Hope Community Center in high school and learning new web development concepts. It was extremely helpful to have knowledgeable volunteers because what they helped me to learn are the foundation of concepts I use as a web developer today.

Getting to meet the other students was equally as great because we spent time together learning and having fun, so I became really close to and made great friends with the other students in the STEAMSport program.

It didn't get more fun than the BDPA'S HSCC
(Black Data Processing Associates' High School Coding Competition).

What did you learn with us and has it been beneficial?

I learned web development skills in HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and PHP. These skills have been indispensable. I’ve used them in a college research project, a teaching assistant position that I held for a web development course, and an internship. Most importantly, I now use my web development skills for my current job! What I learned from the BDPA has quite directly transferred to the skills I use in my career.

What was the most important thing you gained on a personal level (development, relationship, community, etc.) from participating with us?

The network of people I gained through this program has been very valuable for career opportunities. I am grateful to have a consistent group of people who have known me since high school and continue to check in to see how things are going—people who simply care about your well-being.

When you imagine yourself before starting STEAMsport, Inc, what’s different between that version of you and the current version?

STEAMsport helped me to have a strong and confident skill set. More clearly stated, before this program I had played around with web development and many technologies and mainly knew them well enough to get my code to do what I wanted. With STEAMsport, there were mentors and volunteers with a curriculum who guided us through more advanced concepts that web developers should know. And although there was a curriculum, that’s not to say that everything was strict and inflexible. The program’s size allowed me to communicate with the mentors and ask more questions for more specific goals I wanted to accomplish and to find out things I wanted to know.

Describe your most fun experience with us.

It didn’t get more fun than the BDPA’S HSCC (Black Data Processing Associates’ High School Coding Competition). It was a difficult competition, and it required a decent amount of preparation on top of good presentation skills, but the competitions were filled with fun events, and at the time I was in the program, some of the competitions were out of state, and it was tons of fun going to those with the competition team!

If you could talk to yourself just before and after STEAMsport, Inc. , what is one thing you would say?

I’d tell my high school self, “You don’t know what you’re getting into, the people you’re going to meet, and how this is going to change your life. This is not what you’re expecting in the best way possible.”

And to myself just after STEAMsport and right before college, I’d say “You’re prepared for some great opportunities ahead.”

What words of encouragement do you have for future STEAMsport students?

Try to stay engaged. It might be difficult to want to put effort into something that you’re not going to get a grade in or may not even see yourself having a career in, but regardless, you can gain important skills from it and meet fun people! The more involved you are, the more you’ll get out of the program!

Donate Today!

We realize that STEAM programming and competitions are extremely costly and many of our families can’t afford to pay. This does not stop our mission of ensuring children from underserved communities have the same opportunities to explore the wonderful world of STEAM as families who have the ability to pay for such engagement.

Please help us continue to provide these much-needed services for free by donating to our cause. Equality Begins With Education!!