Chuon Ly Dollar did not wait for someone to hand him a job title. He built his own. After completing the Software Development part-time professional diploma program at IT Academy STEP Institute, he now runs a startup of his own, WAAI & MADE BY DOLLAR, and describes his work as that of a full-stack media architect. It is a fitting description for someone who builds the product, the system underneath it, and the brand around it.
For Dollar, the value of the program came down to two things: what was taught and how it was practised. "The material it covers and the coding practices during class," he says, when asked what he liked most. The Software Development curriculum moves from programming foundations into databases, web development, cloud and mobile, with team projects closing out each stage. Students do not simply read about how software is built. They build it, review it, and refine it alongside their classmates.
That structure matched something Dollar already believed about learning. "Going into depth and mastering a skill is crucial," he explains. "Once you have the discipline to move forward, you will understand the entire system behind the skill itself. This school allows you to master a skill, understand how everything is done behind the scenes, and put it into use in the real world."
It is a philosophy that separates a developer who can follow a tutorial from one who can architect a system. Founding a company demands the second kind. There is no senior engineer to escalate to, no template for the problem in front of you, and no way to fake an understanding of how the pieces connect. The depth Dollar describes is exactly what allowed him to move from studying software to shipping it under his own name.
He would like to see even more hands-on time in class and active participation from every student, so that no one sits on the sidelines while the work is happening. He also pushes for a higher bar on the finished product itself, clean and modern in feel, with a colour scheme that signals trust and authority, so that the design and the code quality speak for themselves.
Chuon Ly Dollar's story is a reminder that a part-time program, taken seriously, can produce more than an employee. It can produce a founder. His advice sits quietly inside everything he said: go deep, stay disciplined, and learn the system behind the skill. The rest follows.
