Imagine that you're spending your days tackling college course material and sweating over homework and capstone projects at night. Now imagine that you're doing all of that while you're driving 80 miles round trip to your classes every day and completing your projects in a travel trailer with your seven young children. Most students would struggle, and many would throw in the towel — but those students aren't 马克过滤器. The 满帆 grad excelled in his challenging circumstances and graduated as class valedictorian. His bachelor’s degree in 移动开发 (now the Computer Science bachelor’s degree with a concentration in 移动开发 帮他在他的领域找到了好几个有价值的职位, giving him a life that looks very different from his time in the trailer.

马克的职业生涯是从服兵役开始的, followed by 13 years in military intelligence participating in nuclear weapons inspections and lending his language skills as a diplomatic Russian interpreter. He was interested in working in federal law enforcement after he left, but he struggled to find a job in the wake of a federal hiring freeze. He sold his house and moved his family into a travel trailer at a campground, where they lived off their savings as they tried to figure out their next move.

我妻子说, 'Why don't you use the rest of your GI Bill and go and get a degree that's going to be life-giving?’”马克说。. “我已经获得了计算机科学学士学位, so I knew that I wanted to continue moving in that direction, but I knew I needed to find a more specialized career field with a pipeline that would be good for me and my family."

Mark came across YouTube videos featuring military veterans who had pursued 满帆's technology degrees. The thumbs-up from fellow veterans sold him on the school, 他报名参加了移动开发项目.

That military mindset helped Mark push through difficult material and demanding coursework amid the distractions inside his trailer.

"We had chaos going on and the kids are screaming, and diapers need to be changed," he remembers. But Mark stayed the course and graduated with perfect attendance, 11个课程主任奖, 和先进成就奖.

Mark got a job offer almost immediately after graduation as 家庭 Dollar Corporate's first full-time Mobile Application Engineer, where he worked on seven enterprise-facing iOS and Android mobile applications. 从那里, he quickly made the leap to Belk Corporate as their Principal Android Engineer, then moved on to a contract with Bank of America through APEX Systems. Today, Mark works full time at Bank of America as a Vice President Senior iOS Engineer. He builds and maintains iOS applications and internal frameworks that are used in the bank’s 4,300个金融中心. Mark says that his 满帆 education set up him for success.

“每过一年, I appreciate what I've learned in the mobile development pipeline all the more. There have been so many situations where I've been able to assist a designer, 项目经理, 团队领导, or a UX designer because of my broad understanding of mobile development. I can directly attribute that foundation of knowledge to the 移动开发 degree program and the numerous course directors who invested in my future."

Mark's mobile development jobs have also given his family a new lifestyle: Now they live comfortably in a five-bedroom, 夏洛特郊区有四间浴室的房子, 北卡罗莱纳. He's working from home during the pandemic, and the differences couldn't be clearer.

“我现在在自己的办公室工作，一个带门的房间. I can separate my work life from my family life… I have a Google Home Mini in my office, so I can play relaxing classical music while I ponder the best way to compose some code or resolve a software bug. It's a stark contrast to how life was inside the travel trailer."