Hi everyone, thank you for visiting my page. My entries on this blog are intended for transitioning service members and veterans that are interested in Microsoft Software and Systems Academy (MSSA). I will briefly introduce myself and tell you how I got to where I am at the moment. My name is Veronica Pichay I’m a United States Army Veteran. I spent six years in the CA National Guard and one year in the United States Army.
I was a senior student at Arizona State University majoring in Public Policy when I took an Applied Statistics class. I was blown away by how my professor used R to create a visualization on one of our homework. From that little exposure I got, I decided to not enroll in the next quarter but instead take an Intro to Programming class from Diablo Valley College. After that first class, I was in awe! I was in awe of my capability to learn a new domain that I had no idea how it works just a couple of months ago. The satisfaction that I’ve been experiencing every time my program runs without error is something unequivocally pleasurable. Since then, I’ve been putting all of my efforts to expand my knowledge and learn new concepts.
I found information about MSSA over the web a few years ago but was only offered at Saint Martin’s University and Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University. Those two school options are not going to work with my situation since the class delivery is in person and that will require a full G.I. Bill which I currently don’t have. At the height of the pandemic when everything closed out and the mandate stayed at home order was imposed, Microsoft decided to fully fund the MSSA program and deliver it virtually. I got excited and daydreamed of getting accepted.
The first thing I did to prepare is to learn the front-end fundamentals since I did not touch any HTML/CSS/JS in school. I found a crash course from VetsinTech for Web Development. Secondly, I planned on working two jobs as long as I can to save up since MSSA will be a full-time program and I want to invest all my energy towards learning. I applied, took the MTA 98–361 passed it with flying colors, and got lucky to get an interview time slot. In preparing for the interview, I wrote down all my scenarios that can be asked and organized them in a STAR method. I also wrote down key points that I can highlight if I need to provide more information. The interview day came, and I was very nervous because I was not expecting to get this far in the process. Impostor Syndrome is real but, in the end, I felt confident and prayed that I will get a “YES” for a seat in the cohort. Miraculously, after a couple of weeks, I received an email confirming my participation in the Cloud Application Development cohort.
I’m in such of state of gratitude to be able to get this opportunity. No other company that I know of advocates this much for military personnel’s career transition to the tech industry. All I can say is thank you Microsoft!
