Thrilled to share that after a long year filled with hard work and an unprecedented amount of coffee, I have completed my MSc in Cloud Computing at the National College of Ireland.

My master's allowed me to gain perspective on my role as a technical professional. My mind opened to how digital transformation through scalable architecture, availability and reliability make or break businesses in literal seconds! I am so grateful to have this insight and now the technical skills to make it happen for myself and others.

My modules in Cloud DevSecOps and Scalable cloud computing were my favourite. We were challenged to develop applications that aligned with the UN Sustainable Development Goals. Climate change is a cause that is particularly dear to me, so I centered my projects around reducing carbon emissions and food waste using microservices architecture, notification systems and serverless functions.

You can read more about those project here:  Cloud DevSecOps | Scalable Cloud Computing | Cloud Platform Programming

Putting the technology into context case studies like these gave me a real thirst for working for real-world impact and I am truly excited for what's next.

I got to work a lot with Python and Django this year as we had to also build the apps we'd be deploying to the cloud. I had never really thought of myself as the engineering kind truth be told but it was extremely rewarding to understand the inner-workings of these systems and even getting to build my own API that my coursemates got to use.

I can honestly say this is the single hardest thing I have ever done for many different reasons. I can also honestly say that being able to speak authoritatively on systems architecture is a priceless gift that I am very proud I pushed myself to earn.