HHS alum chases tech dream in San Francisco

Dylan Player has gone from small town to big city. Since Player, a Homewood High School student who graduated in 2022, left Homewood to study computer science at San Francisco’s Dominican University, he’s earned a Dev Degree scholarship to intern at Canadian e-commerce company Shopify.

The Dev Degree scholarship program is a direct partnership between Shopify and Dominican University, working together in scheduling courses and internship hours so there aren’t any conflicting schedules.

“It’s been wonderful,” Player said. “I have really enjoyed it so far because I’m doing something that I enjoy. It makes it easy to still work a lot when you’re doing something you love.”

Player said he’s always found computers and technology interesting. When he was a student at Homewood High School, he attended Riverchase Career Connection Center’s (RC3) Cyber Innovation Academy. RC3 is a Hoover City Schools career readiness program that was offered to several school systems in the area, including Homewood.

Classes at the Cyber Innovation Academy were more hands-on than traditional computer science classes, he said, and allowed him to learn from software engineers.

“You’re working with people that have worked in software and those people are teaching the classes, rather than just a math teacher teaching computer science,” Player said. “Now that I’m working in my computer science position, I remember those things they said when I was in high school, and I think that’s a really unique experience that I had in high school with computer science and I think that’s really helped me do pretty well so far.”

Dominican University’s computer science program is also more hands-on with a project-based curriculum, he said.

Instead of taking several math classes for his degree, he gets to learn skills he will “actually use in the industry,” Player said.

The program was originally called Make Space, an educational tech startup in San Francisco that only taught computer science, he said.

Make Space was going strong for a couple of years until the COVID-19 pandemic caused financial issues, and the startup struggled to get funding, he said. It was later absorbed by Dominican University, the college that provided the program’s accreditation.

“Dominican University has been great,” Player said. “The computer science program is a little different from the rest of the school because we were a part of a different school last year.

“You’re working and actually building things for Shopify and you’re also taking your classes at the same time. Half of my time is spent at Shopify and the other half is spent during the week at Dominican,” Player said.

When Player moved to San Francisco, there wasn’t much of a culture shock for him because he grew up as an only child and likes to learn and figure out things on his own, he said. Those same skills are part of the reason he thrives in computer science.

“I enjoy solving problems, that’s one of the things in computer science that I really like,” Player said. “You have a problem and then you just solve it. You’re working through solving the problem. You’re failing over and over again, and I just enjoy that experience.”

Player said he’s grateful for his experience through Homewood High School’s partnership with RC3 because it helped him get to where he is now.

“Their partnership with RC3 really set me up for success in computer science, and I got to come out with knowledge right out of high school that a lot of students don’t have the opportunity to have,” Player said. “I think that’s a really great program.”