Who am I?
My full name is Mohamed Hazem Mohamed. Yes, I know it's a unique name, and I've heard all the nicknames (Momo, Mohamed2, M&M, etc.). This naming system from where I was born (Baghdad, Iraq) sets a person's middle name as their father's name and their last name as their grandfather's name. From that, you can conclude that my dad's name is Hazem and my grandpa's is Mohamed (whom I'm named after).

Iraq to USA
We escaped Saddam Hussein's regime to Syria as refugees, waiting nearly two years to be selected for a country that would accept us. Fortunately, we were sent to the United States, specifically to Phoenix, Arizona.

Before Programming
I grew up fascinated with electronics and computers. I would disassemble broken appliances and computers, building several systems for myself and friends. I enjoyed taking on various tech challenges, including setting up a home enterprise network with multiple Linux servers running on old laptops. My parents, not seeing the connection of my interests, nudged me towards the medical field. I earned a B.S. in Molecular & Cellular Biology and spent long hours working in a research lab, scribing, and serving as an Arabic medical interpreter. After much reflection and effort, I decided to pivot and applied to Pharmacy school, where I was eventually accepted.

Taking a chance
After my acceptance, my wife and I had a long discussion and decided it was best for me to defer for a year and explore the IT field. Leading up to this, I was working in a reference laboratory (ARUP), but I was gravitating towards projects involving IT and Computer Science. I had programmed a webpage that generated client notes based on certain criteria, and I realized this was my true passion. I landed my first official job in IT as an IT Analyst, supporting a large department by fixing computer issues through both hardware and software solutions, including writing scripts. This was where I wanted to be. Fast forward three years, and now I am solely writing code for multiple departments.

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