statement.txt

I dropped out of high school when I was 16 years old, mainly because of typical teenager concerns. Some months later,
two software engineers started a local hacklab that, seen in retrospective, had a great impact on me. Although I had
previously been interested in programming, my greatest achievement was to write a second degree equation solver. Those
two engineers were also FOSS advocates: it did not take me long before I installed Debian GNU/Linux.

As usual in these cases, I began reading about and playing with the OS, network services, etc. It would not have gone
any further if one of those engineers had not introduced me into Python while returning from a hackmeeting from Madrid.

As a consequence, I began playing around with Python: Conway's Game of Life, a strategic board game called Abalone, etc.
After a while, I tried Django out. I began designing three or four little web pages which I can not even remember now.
My friends were aware of my interests and one of them offered me my first job as a freelance. It did not take long
before I got my first serious job: a web page for a local radio station that involved, among other things, uploading all
their data to the Internet Archive automatically, flexible radio program structures and a really clean administration
site. Nowadays the web page is actively used and the radio has become one of my most reliable clients.

The two engineers proposed me to become part of their association whose objectives were the promotion of FOSS and the
Basque language. As I carried on working on software projects, I noticed that, despite my self-managed education, I was
lacking some more solid theoretical base. Having settled down a bit, I decided that I wanted my hobby and my job to
become my studies too. So I picked up high school again; I will finish it this year without too many worries and with
good grades (I imagine being a bit older helps). Although I enjoy all the subjects, my current favourite subjects are
mathematics, physics and electronics.

This past summer I was faced with the dilemma of having to decide what to do next. Both Basque and Spanish universities
are a bit backwards in regards to computer science and software engineering. I have always liked Scotland (specially the
highlands' landscape, I love hiking) and I have a taste for the grammar and the idioms of the English language. So I
searched for undergraduate courses, checked their programs and their prices and made my decision. Besides the
mathematical and algorithmic part of software development, I am interested in studying the software design patterns and
different approaches to development.

The next thing I did was to get my IELTS certificate. Although my native languages are Basque and Spanish, I can manage
in Dutch, which has more similarities than differences with English, which helps, and I understand French. Being a
software developer, I read and write lots of documentation in English but I'm quite shy at speaking it.

I also began contributing to Django this year. At this moment, I own 18 tickets, 13 of my commits made it into Django
1.7 and I reviewed several patches from other people. I am currently working on self-referenced template inheritance
handling along with an other person; it will most likely become a medium sized feature of the 1.7 release. Working on
Django gives me the opportunity to work together with very bright minds, to learn about big and complex project
organization, to get my code, documentation and tests rigorously reviewed, to improve my technical communication skills
and to help the Django community move forward. Although I will definitely continue taking part in the Django community,
I am thinking of getting involved in Python's standard library too.

My goal is to further improve myself in what I so much enjoy: software development.