Hello! My name is Yuki Hata. I am currently an intern here at DCAC. As I approach my one-year anniversary here, I wanted to share a little bit about myself and my journey thus far. I moved back to San Diego in 2019 from Japan after playing professional soccer for a year and decided that I wanted to pursue a career as a physical therapist. Playing soccer my whole life and receiving a bachelor’s degree in kinesiology (scientific study of human movement), it just made the most sense to me. I began working at a physical therapy clinic in San Diego and was also a personal trainer on the side. My girlfriend (now wife) was just finishing up her teaching credential program at California State University, Long Beach and was actively seeking a job as a middle school math teacher. Our plans were to live together and for her to move to San Diego and find a teaching job out there as I was in the rolling admissions for University of Saint Augustine, meaning that I would be enrolled in the next admissions cycle. It turned out that there were more teaching opportunities for my wife in Los Angeles and it seemed like the move to LA was becoming more probable. I was living with my college roommates at the time and with our lease coming to an end and with my future uncertain, I had decided that I would have to move back to my parents’ place in Palm Springs until I found out where my wife would land a job.
I broke the news to my physical therapy clinic and to my clients that I would be moving in a month. I was upset about moving as I had formed a close bond with my coworkers and my clients. One of my clients was Denny Cherry. A few days later him and his wife came to me with a life-changing proposal. He offered to teach me one on one for the last month that I was in town about SQL and all things databases and at the end of it, a job working for DCAC. I had to take a few days to think about it, as I was on the brink of starting my journey and working towards my doctorate in Physical Therapy. I decided to take the leap of faith and do a 180-degree career change. For the next month after work, I would drive to Denny’s house multiple times a week for several hours to learn as much as I possibly could.
Fast forward to today and I still feel so grateful for Denny and Kris for giving me the opportunity of a lifetime, let alone saving me from potentially over a hundred thousand dollars in student loan debt. This year has flown by, and I truly enjoy the material and believe that this has been the right decision for me. Everyone at DCAC has been very welcoming and helpful along my journey. I can’t express how thankful I am for Denny and everyone at DCAC and am excited to continue to grow in this field.
If you made it this far, thank you! I plan on continuing to blog about my journey and update everyone on what I’ve been learning. Hope to work with you all soon.
