Starting Early
My first experiments with tech didn’t start in a lab or a classroom — they started in 3rd grade with a Nintendo Wii. I wanted free games, Brawl hacks, and custom music swaps. Project M was all the hype, and in Video Game Club we’d play it like it was official.
The problem? I couldn’t get it to work. I tried in 3rd grade, failed. Tried again in 5th grade, failed again. Every guide looked simple until I was the one holding the SD card. Still, I kept coming back. I didn’t know it yet, but that persistence was my first real tech skill.
The Summer of 8th Grade
One summer in 8th grade, it finally clicked. I figured out the file structure, loaded the Homebrew Channel, and actually got Brawl mods running. Suddenly we had Project M, custom music, and a Wii that felt brand new.
That same summer I discovered emulators. I didn’t have a PS3 or an Xbox One, so if I wanted to play the games everyone else talked about, I had to make do with what I had. My laptop became my “everything console” — downloading ROMs, tinkering with settings, and building the gaming library I never could’ve afforded otherwise.
“The Wii wasn’t just a console. It was my first lab, my first playground, and my first taste of breaking and fixing tech.”
The Android Rooting Era
Around the same time, I started messing with Android phones. We didn’t buy the latest iPhones or flagships — we got prepaid unlocked phones, usually a generation or two behind. Out of the box, they felt stripped down compared to what everyone else had. Rooting wasn’t about flexing — it was about survival.
I needed features my phone didn’t ship with: custom ROMs, better battery life, removing bloatware that slowed everything down. Every root was like a jailbreak out of necessity. Some nights it worked. Other nights I soft bricked the device and spent hours digging through XDA forums for a way back. But little by little, I learned how Android actually worked under the hood.
Making Do With What I Had
None of this looked like “IT training” at the time. It just looked like me refusing to accept limits. No new consoles? Emulate. No high-end phone? Root. No money for new games? Mod Brawl and play Project M with friends.
That mindset — stretch what you have, push it past the limits, and fix it when it breaks — is the same one I use now when I’m troubleshooting real IT problems.
What It Taught Me
- Persistence: I failed more times than I succeeded at first, but every retry got me closer.
- Problem-solving: Bricked devices meant learning recovery tools and bootloader tricks I never thought I’d need.
- Resourcefulness: Free guides, sketchy downloads, late nights on forums — I learned how to find answers when nobody was holding my hand.
Looking Back
At the time, it was just me chasing free games, customizing phones, and making old hardware do more than it should. But those experiments taught me persistence, discipline, and curiosity — the core of every IT job I’ve ever had since.
I didn’t realize it then, but bricking Wiis, rooting budget Androids, and playing with emulators were my first steps into IT. I wasn’t following a career path — I was just making do. But that’s exactly how the career path started.