Student Spotlight: Migi Domingo, Fullstack

Migi Domingo is a recent graduate of Fullstack Academy in New York. We met him at the Fullstack Demo Day, and he was nice enough to answer some of our questions about his experience! In this Q&A, Migi tells us about how he got into tech and takes us through his final project. 

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What were you up to before deciding to go to Fullstack?

Before Fullstack, I had just left school and left my job as a radio DJ back in the Philippines. I was doing a lot of soul searching in 2013, trying to figure out what I really wanted to do with my life moving forward. I realized that a lot of ideas I had had a lot to do with tech and so I dove right into teaching myself coding in August last year.

Who was your favorite instructor or mentor and why?

It's hard to pick between David and Nimit because they both bring different things to the table. I had a lot more time sitting down and pairing with David and talking about ways to solve particular coding problems while with Nimit I spent a lot of time discussing potential ideas and seeing how they could be executed. I can't pick a favorite because they're both great mentors and without them, I definitely wouldn't have been able to handle web development the way I do now.

Can you talk about a time when you got stuck in the class and how you pushed through?

While working on Hash Toogs (my final project), I spent a few days trying to read up and figure out how I was going to stream music to all connected clients using sockets and the SoundCloud API. It seemed like something that could be done easily at first but after a few days I realized that I might not be able to learn how to do it fast enough. I talked to David at that point and he helped me open my mind and explore other ways of making my app do what I wanted it to do. In the end, I ended up using Firebase to solve the problem and the app works really great now.

Tell us about your final project! (the technologies you used, how long it took, how you executed on the idea, etc)

My final individual project is something I called Hash Toogs. I took the concept of Turntable.fm and modified it a bit to create a different kind of user experience. I decided to allow all users to contribute music to the chat room using the SoundCloud API. I started out by planning the project on paper, imagining what users would be doing when they use the app. The chat/music app runs on a combination of Angular+Firebase and allows for a really smooth, real time experience. If I count the number of hours I spent working on it, I'd say it took me about 3 weeks to get the app to where it is today. Firebase just recently introduced a free hosting option and I plan on refactoring my code so that I can use Firebase's free hosting.

Thanks to Migi for sharing his experience! Want to learn more about Fullstack Academy? Check out their school page on Course Report or their website.