#183 From drop-out to backpacker to self-taught developer with Dominick Monaco

On this week's episode of the podcast, freeCodeCamp founder Quincy Larson interviews Dominick Monaco. He dropped out college to hike the Appalachian Trail, a 2,200 mile backpacking route across the US. After working in nature conservation for 3 years, he taught himself how to program and now works as a developer.

We talk about:
- Life working as a Yogi Bear-style forest ranger in training
- Close brushes with death in the wilderness and how it affects you
- Learning programming for a grand total of $15
- How surrounding yourself with other ambitious learners can help you learn programming faster

Support for this podcast comes from a grant from Wix Studio. Wix Studio provides developers tools to rapidly build websites with everything out-of-the-box, then extend, replace, and break boundaries with code. Learn more at https://wixstudio.com.

Support also comes from the 11,189 kind folks who support freeCodeCamp through a monthly donation. You can join these chill human beings and help our charity's mission by going to https://donate.freecodecamp.org

Links we talk about during our conversation:
- Dominick's blog article on how he got here: https://dominickjmona.co/blog/how-i-got-here
- Dominick on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dominick-j-monaco/
- Americorps conservation core: https://www.americorps.gov/