6 Years in 6 Minutes ⏱️

Looking back on the past 6 years of my life, its amazing to see how all the little and seemingly inconsequential decisions I made daily have compounded to ultimately make me the person I am today.

Throughout my life, I have always believed that "Success is not about reaching the destination, Its about the person you become and the lessons you learn along the way". We get so caught up in the complexities of our day to day lives that we forget to stop for a moment, step back, and truly reflect on the person we have become.

Scavenged Shores has been one of the most challenging and rewarding projects I have undertaken in my whole life. Pushing through and learning from each of the struggles that it has presented has enabled me to achieve every single thing that I have achieved in the past 6 years. For this I am forever grateful to my younger self for having the courage to undertake such a daunting project.

Here are some of the things I have accomplished since 2020 🎉

• Started Scavenged Shores 🌊

Scavenged Shores originally started as a response to a small arguement I had with my friend Jamie. We were arguing about the state of Minecraft Multiplayer servers, and at the end of the arguement he said "Brandon, you complain about this all the time, either do something about it or stop talking about it". I responded with "I will" and the rest is history.

6 years later, with over $25,000 spent, over 10,000 hours contributed and over 40,000 lines of code written. We are super excited to release version 1.0 of the server next month to the public.

• Meeting my now girlfriend Ellie 💕

In mid 2021 I decided it was time to start explore dating. I downloaded Bumble and set up my profile. After a month of matches that never really led anywhere, I decided that I would uninstall the app at the end of the week.

One day, I loaded up the app and the first profile that loaded was Ellie's. I started scrolling through the profile and was blown away by how pretty she was and how many interests we had in common.

I had one rule that I stuck to when using the app; I would only match with a verified profile. As I was scrolling through her profile I forgot to check if she was verified and because of this I was about to swipe "No". At the last moment I scrolled to the top and saw the verified icon and swiped "Yes". We matched instantly as she had already swiped "Yes" on my profile.

Not long after we matched, we organised our first date and met for dinner at a restraunt. We immeditately hit it off and not long after that we officially became boyfriend and girlfriend. We have now been together for 5 years and plan on buying a house to move into together within the next year.

• Completed a Certificate IV in Programming 📃

Halfway during 2020 I completed a Cerficate IV in Programming at TAFE. This hands on course provided practical programming experience and is where I first learned the Java & Python programming languages. Completing this certificate then allowed me to transfer to the University of Adelaide in July of 2020.

• Compled a Bachelor of Information Technology Majoring in AI 👾

Half way through 2023 I completed a Bachelor of Information Technology Majoring in AI at the University of Adelaide. Unlike the programming course at TAFE, this degree had a lot more theory behind it. This complimented the certificate I had previously completed as it allowed me to understand things like data structures at a more fundamental level.

• Learnt how to drive, got my P's & bought a car 🚗

Throughout this time I also learnt to drive. Although not seeming like a big milestone, to me it was. Ever since going through severe depression at the end of highschool I never wanted to learn how to drive due to anxiety and many fears.

With encouragement from Ellie throughout 2023 I learnt how to drive and at the start of 2024 I bought my first car (a Mazda CX5). As of writing this I am currently a couple of months away from obtaining my full license!

• Started my first job at Kingpin & promoted to Arcade manager 👑

At the start of 2023 I started my first ever casual job as a GSA (General Service Attendant) at a bowling alley/arcade called Kingpin.

Within 6 months I was promoted to Arcade Manager and led a small team for the next 2 years. Throughout this time I learnt many skills such as team management, stock management, merchandising, communication & problem solving skills. I also led my team to win "Proud of IT" twice, which is a competition run across the company each month where a venue across Australia is selected and featured in the internal newsletter.

One of my fondest memories working there was my final day. We threw a huge going away party at Kingpin and I was completely shocked by the amount of team old, current and new who showed up for it. Some of the team even wrote cards for me thanking me for everything I had done for them throughout my time working there.

• Started a job as a Software Engineer 🎓

My most recent achievement is starting a new job as a Software Engineer. I started this job in August last year and have learnt so much in such a relatively short time. Unlike Kingpin this is the field I would like to progress my career in and the the skills that I have learnt have been extremely valuable as I have been able to transfer them to Scavenged Shores to improve various systems and processes.

Final thoughts

Anyways! Thank you for reading this post, Remember to stay humble and reach for the stars. I appreciate you all so much, and I am looking forward to speaking with you all soon! 🙌🏻😇