Dev Catalyst Alumni: Colton Cronin and A New Perspective

“I think Dev Catalyst is an incredible resource for West Tennessee, and there's nothing that even remotely compares to the opportunities it gives students in the area,” says Colton Cronin, a senior math and economics major from Vanderbilt University.

Cronin has seen these opportunities first-hand as he recalls the experience he has been given during his time at college, working as a research assistant with a team of economists to analyze how elite and non-elite college credentials affect income in different fields.

He can clearly see how the knowledge he gained during the Dev Catalyst program brought him to the place he is now. After attempting to teach himself programming skills during his early high school career, he realized his need for assistance, so once his school announced they would begin the Dev Catalyst program the following year, he says he immediately signed up. 

He says he appreciated how practical and structured the class was, and the following summer, he was given an opportunity to work alongside theCO in a coding project for Socktober, an annual event dedicated to donating hundreds of socks to the homeless in the Jackson community. 

“The year itself was interesting, learning this new language and getting to see what it was like to build a website for the first time, but in the summer, it gave us the opportunity to put those skills to practice,” says Cronin.

Along with the class and the Socktober project, Cronin says the San Francisco trip was also a crucial experience in understanding how the technology industry operates, and he says it was exciting to see the numerous opportunities available to him and his classmates. 

“I think the biggest takeaway would be seeing what life is like outside West Tennessee and seeing that these very exciting and fun jobs are out there,” Cronin says. “They are very attainable for people like us who are learning these skills through programs like Dev Catalyst.” 

He says the trip itself gave him a new perspective of what is possible with this knowledge he has been able to gain, and he wants to encourage students interested in coding to take a risk and to explore these possibilities for themselves.

“I think learning to code really introduces you to a new way of thinking—a very precise way of thinking,” he says. “So, I feel like taking the chance and learning how to code will either open up a new path for you or at least give you a new way of thinking about the world and about technology.”