During the summer of 2009 I made a big decision. It was early in the academic term and I had just received my first midterm mark.
It was 30%.
Never in the history of my academic career had I received a midterm mark below 50%, but this 30% wasn’t a shock to me. I had been spending nearly all of my time outside of the classroom working on what would soon be one of my largest projects to date, the Strips platform.
When I saw the failed mark on my midterm I took some time to think, as anyone should do when this sort of thing happens. I came to the conclusion that I had reached a point in my academic career where I strongly believed that I had the chops to build something, and that I needed to do it right then.
So I took the plunge. I dropped three of my four courses and spent the next three months working full time on the Strips platform.
This is its post-mortem, and I hope to leave this as a note to myself and anyone else who has the desire to build something.