Feb 4, 2020
Vincent started programming in the mid-90s when he stumbled across AOL punters and similar tools. At the age of 18, he joined the Marine Corps. His specialty for the Corps was "data network specialist." Vincent spent time in Bahrain and Djibouti, Africa, where he won a Navy and Marine Corps achievement medal for building the first defense message system network in the field. He was honorably discharged at the rank of Sergeant after 4 years. After being discharged Vincent pursued a career in academia. He was awarded a Master’s degree in 2012 in philosophy and cognitive science and went on to a Ph.D. program at UMass, Amherst where he taught philosophy classes and did research for his dissertation. He decided to leave academia in 2015 and return to programming professionally. Since returning to programming he has worked as a software engineer and lead instructor for the General Assembly web development immersive course and the React part-time course. He is now a senior software engineer at First Look Media. He loves to teach and spends a lot of time in the Operation Code Slack channels where he sometimes mentors. He also volunteers for Codebar, Code Nation, and Back On My Feet, where he exercises with homeless veterans and will be headed to Puerto Rico in March to help with disaster relief with All Hearts All Hands.