How DaKwan Left Camp to Hack the Tech World—and How You Can Too

Life After Summer Camp

Why camp experiences might just be the best tech career training ground

3 tips from Dak on how to get into tech

DaKwan might be the best kid connector I have ever worked with. Top 5 for sure.

He did 2 things I really admire on his way from camp staff to tech bro, Dak can I call you a tech bro now?

He got me to get him an internship - in 2018 he said "Jack, I want to come back to camp, but only if you get me an internship in tech marketing that works with camp." I loved this tenacity, called a friend who loved camp and built an internship around the camp schedule.

Your camp director has more connections than you think. Put them to work for you

Taught him self the skill he wanted - Dakwan went to school for business and initially web development was just a hobby. He put himself on fiverr & upwork for super cheap offering to run Facebook adds or manage wordpress sites.

People paid him to learn.

Below he shares his career journey from camp staff to getting into the tech world.

Silly videos to get to know Dakwan

Counselors in Cars Getting Fast Food

How Stomping Ground Prepared Dakwan for His First Big Boy Job

CAMP BOY!

Hi!

My name is DaKwan Bonnick-Tomlinson and I am a 28 year old Jamaican-American from Rochester, NY. I’m the youngest of 3 with 2 older sisters, and was raised by my Mother who came to the U.S from Kingston. I was one of those “School isn’t for everyone” kind of kids that took pride in their disdain for the education system!

One thing always remained constant for me, though. My passion for computers. As much as I disliked the idea of school, I still found value in it by honing in on what was truly interesting to me.

I’m a lifelong camper!

I started my journey the summer of third grade as a camper at a small camp in upstate NY, going every summer until eventually working there as a junior counselor. I also had the amazing opportunity to work with Jack Schott and other incredible youth development leaders to build Stomping Ground, an experience I would not trade for the world!

I grew with them, learning first hand what it means to truly run a business.

COMPUTER BOY!

Currently, I’m a senior full stack web developer, building/maintaining websites and working with teams cross-functionally to produce high quality web experiences for users that interact with our content. Whether they are reading a blog, buying a product/service, or just surfing the web, I get to help curate their experience on our sites! I have been working as a web developer for about 7 years now, shifting my focus towards cyber security and web application penetration testing.

MY DAY TO DAY

The intensity of my day to day varies as with other professionals but the work itself never really changes.

50% - As a web developer, 50% of my time is spent ensuring things are running smoothly, software is up to date, data is secure, bugs are fixed, essentially making sure users can always access the site safely, securely, and efficiently.

30% of my time is spent building out new features or logic to update the site. There may be a new request come in where a page or tool needs to be built or there may be a new trend that we are looking to emulate.

20% - As these trends change, it’s important to make sure your website changes with them and this is where the last 20%(these numbers are not exact) of my time goes. Researching and staying updated on the latest best practices, making sure we do not fall behind competitors, and ensuring digital marketing metrics are met is another crucial aspect of the job that cannot go undone.

Getting Hired is the Hardest Part

I’m sure you may have heard someone at some point say “getting hired is the hardest part!” and, in my opinion, that’s only because of how easy it is to get discouraged. This can mean the difference between landing your career in a week or a year.

If you’ve worked at camp, then you know that your best effort is the one that gives you the result you were looking for. From homesickness to overprotective parents, the list of challenges we face is long.

But we face them for the sake of watching these families truly get joy out of an experience we work so hard to create for them, and that parent/guardians work just as hard to provide their children with.

This is the kind of pressure you need to apply when trying to break into any space!

Tip 1: Technology is your best friend! Get creative with it!

It’s 2024. At this point, technology has made its way into every aspect of our lives. A lot varies depending on how high of a demand exists for the role you’re looking for but the sentiment still remains the same.

Competition is everywhere, and people are learning how to make technology work for them when it comes to things like applying for jobs, studying for interviews, creating resumes/portfolios, and more. No matter what job market you’re searching for, you’re competition is capable of providing the same value.

This is why it is important to get creative and find ways to stand out from other candidates. There are some awesome templates for resume/portfolio sites for people to create their own website, showcasing all their skills and talents.

AI is a great way to fine tune a resume/cover letter and apps like Linkedin are making it easier and easier to filter job searches and apply with ease.

Tip 2: Be Realistic and Be Specific

Trivial as it may sound, it was one of the harder things to recognize in the moment. Getting distracted with the end goal is so easy to do we often overlook some of the steps we should take to get there.

Understanding exactly what you want to do, down to the name of the exact role, will provide you with a much better understanding of where to apply.

I always knew I wanted to be in tech but was never specific with a role until I understood what my true goals were.

This resulted in me applying for more jobs than I needed to, jobs I was not even qualified for a lot of times; I would leave these interviews feeling disappointed too, thinking I failed at something that I had no business trying to tackle in the first place! I felt like I was working towards an impossible goal.

All of this rejection made me feel so discouraged, until I took another look at what I was applying for. It made no sense initially, until I realized I was not being specific enough.

I was applying to every kind of tech job thinking I could get in at the entry level and get by with what I knew. What worked for me in the end, however, was honing in on my specific strengths/skills at the time and finding what roles required exactly those.

I found a specific digital marketing role with focus areas that aligned with all of my experience.

Tip 3: Stay Curious

Once you think you’ve learned it all, you’ve lost. A mentor of mine who worked as an account executive for a tech company told me this once.

One feeling that I encountered early in my experience as a developer was the feeling of “imposter syndrome”. This term refers to the feeling an individual has when they perceive themselves to be less sufficient in comparison to others in their position in some way.

I went to my first developer conference and got the chance to network with some other people who work in the space. I could feel the sweat dripping down my forehead as I was talking to some people. It seemed like no matter how confident I was in what I was saying, there was this fear that I was either wrong or just sounded like I didn’t know what I was talking about.

Luckily for me, the tech community has some of the most supportive people(no pun intended) in the workforce.

Most of my anxiety went away when I started asking more questions. I didn’t feel like I had to showcase my knowledge or test my skills in every conversation. I got to see some cool projects as a result too!

Staying curious is important in such a fast changing environment, because things are constantly evolving. What you learn now could be obsolete in 5 years, and something brand new could take its place; we can never truly be done with learning