Leeana Crispell: In 10 Paragraphs
In my career, I've had a lot of fun experimenting with different types of jobs. My first few roles were all customer service-related, before I joined the Air Force. In the Air Force—as I previously mentioned—I worked in the language field. The Air Force trained me in speaking, reading, and writing the language, among other skills.
Afterwards, I spent approximately seven years translating for both the military and other government organizations. It was a very tedious time in my life, if I'm being honest. While I was proud of my ability to speak a second language, it was very difficult for me to learn, and I didn't particularly enjoy it. I knew even back then that it wasn't a career I wanted to pursue long-term.
Outside of the military, I continued translating for about two more years, but that was mostly for financial reasons. During that time, I was in school, trying to figure out what I actually wanted to do with my life.
At first, I looked into political science. I took my first politics class and immediately realized it wasn't for me. Then I switched to East Asian Languages and Culture, since that had been my career background. Very quickly, I discovered that the program focused more on culture than language—and I already knew more of the language than the college could teach me.
While I was proud of that fact, I also realized that earning a bachelor's degree in that field would be somewhat pointless, especially since I already had a minor that taught me more. So, I moved on to cybersecurity. I had a mild interest in it, as my translation work often involved collaboration with people in the cybersecurity field. It wasn't a foreign concept to me.
However, I quickly realized that networking and cybersecurity were much more complicated and technical than I wanted to get into.
Finally, after approximately seven years of attending school, I settled on web design. Part of the reason was that I wouldn't lose any credits by switching degrees again. Another reason was that I'd always been mildly interested in user experience and layouts.
Back in high school, I was a yearbook editor and always prided myself on my ability to create interesting and well-designed layouts. When I discovered that the web design degree had a track more focused on coding, I knew that was the one I wanted to take.
It allows me to explore my artistic side a bit while also helping me sharpen my technical skills. I've found that HTML and CSS come relatively easily to me. However, JavaScript has become the bane of my existence. One day, I hope to master this “real” coding language, but for now, I'm happy just being able to make simple projects.
My biggest goal for this portfolio website is to gradually implement more complex code and give myself a place to practice both design and technical skills.