Hello, my name is Reece Cooper. I am 20 years of age, born in the UK. I am a computer expert and a Unix/Linux lover. I am ambitious, passionate, and have a striven to learn attitude within the technology industry, who has acquired knowledge in this field through self-study, the study of BTEC IT Level 3 Diploma Extended in South Essex College and previous experience in establishing business requirements, performing daily tasks involving clients' support queries, and system implementations to increase productivity and reduce costs.

I'll admit, 2018 was a good year for me. I learned a lot within the technology industry, met the love of my life, and increased in popularity with streaming. However, I still had some low points. I had a lot of responsibilities at the age of 18, a lack of motivation, and the problems of taking on too much work at once, all while trying to stream, meet with my partner every week or so living 3-4hrs away from where I am, and to study at college. It became all stressful and overwhelming at this point.

With that said, once 2019 came around, I did some thinking and reflected on the past year (I know this sounds cliché as hell). However, I did see a problem with how things were progressing, and in the wrong direction of breaking my mental health. So, I came to my conclusion that I should go live with my partner once I have graduated from college, cool down on streaming, and begin my life journey from there.

So, here I am today in 2020, living with my partner, currently studying in my free time and finding a job. Today, I would like to speak to you about my journey to who I am.

I first started having an interest in computers ever since the age of five when my dad introduced me to the first ever Playstation. I loved it. Playing Crash Team Racing was my preferred game of all time. Obviously, as a young child, I lack in the interest of any upcoming events other than playing games. But, as time went on, I played every generation of Playstation consoles until I met a friend. So, I have a friend that goes by the name, Ashley that I met through primary school that has an in-depth passion for Technology, not just games but further upon that. So, I started to see what things he was doing. Those involved small developments of code, system administration, hardware installation, you name it... so, I looked into those roles. Without a surprise, I was intrigued by the process. He became my role model.

During secondary school, my friend Ashley created an organization called XOMCLOUD. The XOMCLOUD's purpose was to bring innovative and reliable hosting solutions, ranging from Dedicated Servers, Virtual Private Servers, Web hosting, to Minecraft hosting. So, he offered me a role as a 'Junior System Administrator/Support' to help me get into the role, gather some experience, and adapt myself to the cloud industry. My responsibility was to proactively monitor and fix the backend server infrastructure, and do daily tasks that involved responding to clients' support queries. At this point, I felt comfortable with the position and learned a lot.

Day-to-day I would work remotely during school breaks (Breaktime and lunchtime) and come home from secondary school to solve clients' support queries because that was how ambitious I was. I like to satisfy our customers; I will do anything to bring that service into the hands of the customer's needs to maintain their happiness. Why? Without fulfilling a customer, there's no positive vibe in XOMCLOUD's environment in-reference to communication and teamwork. I, as an optimistic person, is to bring happiness into a workplace, therefore, willing to bring the organization or branch to the next level. Customers are always a priority in this case.

Later in the years, I went to pursue college to expand on my skills. But unfortunately, I couldn't adapt much time to XOMCLOUD because money became an issue to travel to college. As you may have acknowledged, I worked remotely at XOMCLOUD as a hobby of mine. So, I went to work part-time for a plumbing organization called 'SX Heating and Plumbing' as an IT Assistant whilst at college studying for my `BTEC IT Level 3 Extended Diploma`. My key responsibility was to monitor and administrate the website through WordPress, add/modify/remove products on the main system, create advertisements, answer phone calls and leading them to the correct department, fault diagnosing hardware/software, and occasionally do the stocking. I gained a lot of experience throughout this organization than being at XOMCLOUD because it was a fast-paced environment, a lot of customer interaction over the phone, time-management was key to my day-to-day tasks, and the communication became more effective. Overall, I was happy.

However, having finished college, unfortunately leaving 'SX Heating & Plumbing' and my family behind (Ultimately my mum, two sisters, and one brother) to go live with my partner, I am living that freedom, test my limits, and to pursue my ambitions as a Computer Expert. This was only just the start of my journey.