How Community and Support Kept Me Moving Forward in Tech
by Etelson Alcius, Last Mile Student
People often see the highlight reel of a career in tech—the internships, the projects, the polished résumé. What they rarely see is what it costs to keep going. The grief that shows up anyway. The pressure that never really lets up. The constant balancing act that makes progress feel fragile, even when things look successful from the outside. My journey in tech has been shaped as much by those unseen moments as by the wins themselves.
I’m currently finishing my senior year, but my journey as a builder didn’t begin in college. It started in high school, when I co-founded a startup that would become Bright Eye, an app for generative and analytical AI. At the time, I was the product designer, obsessed with intuitive interfaces and thoughtful user flows. I cared deeply about how technology feels in someone’s hands—not just what it can do, but how it meets the person using it.
As the ambition behind the product grew, reality quickly set in. If I wanted to move fast, I couldn’t stay solely in design—I needed to help build it, too. That realization is what pulled me into computer science. Coding gave me a real sense of control. Instead of waiting on someone else’s timeline, I could turn ideas into shipped features myself. Over time, I joined the development effort and worked on scalable backend systems. Eventually, Bright Eye reached more than 30,000 users across iOS and the web. Entrepreneurship taught me urgency, ownership, and how to keep learning when the plan changes.
Then freshman year of college hit, and life got heavier. I lost a close family member, and the grief took a real toll on my focus. It’s hard to stay sharp in those early “foundation” classes, where it can feel like every exam decides whether you belong. Grief doesn’t pause for problem sets. I remember trying to keep pace while carrying something I couldn’t simply set down.
As I moved forward, the challenges changed shape but didn’t disappear. I was balancing the internship recruiting cycle—the applications, preparation, interviews, and repetition—alongside work and school. It often felt like living in multiple timelines at once, building for the future while trying to survive the present.
One of the biggest turning points for me was finding community. Joining organizations like MLT and ColorStack gave me more than career resources—it gave me people. Being around others who looked like me and understood the pressures of navigating technical education helped me stay grounded. These were the same people I attended hackathons with, traveled to conferences with, and practiced technical interviews alongside. For the first time, I could be honest about setbacks, learn strategies that actually worked, and stay accountable to my goals without feeling alone in the process.
That momentum carried through my roles at Siemens, Schneider Electric, NVIDIA, and LinkedIn. At Siemens, I experienced the tangible impact of the full development cycle when a Python application I built for metric calculations saved the company thousands in licensing costs. By the time I reached LinkedIn, I was building AI-powered chatbots and automated tagging systems to manage massive datasets. These roles taught me how to ship software at scale, but more importantly, they deepened my passion for the entire lifecycle of a product—from whiteboard ideation and coding to deployment and production monitoring. Even on my own startup, I was able to work across that full cycle. For me, the real excitement lies in taking a raw idea and building it into a finished, dependable system that users can really depend on.
Even as I made progress, the pressure of tuition never let up. That’s why support from Last Mile meant so much to me. When I received $1,600 to help cover my fall semester, it gave me something I hadn’t had in a while: breathing room. It kept my semester from turning into a stress spiral. It let me focus on learning and finishing strong. That kind of relief doesn’t just ease a burden—it changes what you’re able to give your attention to.
Now, I’m focused on finishing my degree and stepping into the next chapter with real intention. I’m especially excited to return to LinkedIn as a Software Engineer after my previous internship. That experience deepened my exposure to machine learning and infrastructure at scale, and returning feels meaningful. It’s an opportunity to contribute, learn from exceptional engineers, and take on larger problems over time.
I’m also focused on becoming the kind of engineer who can own projects from start to finish. I want to deeply understand the product goal, design solutions thoughtfully, and iterate based on real feedback and data. At the same time, I’m keeping my entrepreneurial side sharp. That’s where my tech story began, and I want to keep that muscle strong through side projects and experiments—staying close to the craft of listening for real problems and executing on them.
If you’re early in your journey and carrying a lot—grief, responsibility, or financial stress—I hope my story reminds you that your path doesn’t have to be perfect to be real. Sometimes, the most important thing is simply continuing. Last Mile helped me continue when it mattered, and I’m grateful not just for what the support covered, but for what it made possible then—and what it continues to make possible now.