Blog – Page 2 – Nate Atkinson

Track Season is Back

I’m lucky enough to work on a college campus and stay involved with the track & field team. I was an athlete for EIU from 2005-2010 – so even though I don’t compete anymore, I stay involved with the team by volunteering at the home meets. I manage the timing, results and scoreboard.

The team had their annual “Turkey Trials,” an inter-squad meet just before the Thanksgiving break. Its a pretty small meet, so it was just me and Coach Akers running the show. Its a good opportunity for the athletes to get a taste of competition after training for months, a good measuring stick for coaches, and a good chance for me to make sure the timing system is ready for indoor season.

Our first home meet is the annual EIU Early Bird, which is usually the 2nd Friday of December.

Teaching

For the first time, I will be teaching 2 sections of a class in the School of Business at Eastern Illinois University this spring. During my undergraduate and graduate years I had thought about continuing on to get my doctorate because teaching had always been a thought in my head.

I love collaborating.

I love getting excited about technology (mostly coding)

I love getting others excited

I love seeing a student or peer make progress and I know I was there to help them learn something that took me weeks of struggling.

Web development is such a growing industry that I am almost completely self-taught. Sure I learned my coding basics and database design basics in school – but 80% of what I know is self-taught. So I’m excited to hopefully give my students a helping hand and give the web development community some better web developers!