Life & Work with Tea Abuselidze of Kansas City

Today we’d like to introduce you to Tea Abuselidze

Hi Tea, we’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
I’m Tea (pronounced like Tee-uh)! My life is a mix of technology and artistry. I have always been a creative person at heart and dabbled in many different creative outlets (songwriting, composition, graphic design). Going through high school was my first ever true face-to-face experience with learning about technology. The first class that introduced me to this world was an Intro to Web Development class where we learned basic (and I mean basic!) HTML/CSS to create clunky websites straight out of the 90s. It wasn’t much, but watching my screen come to life lit something in me. Besides creativity, I was a math and science junkie. I always excelled in STEM related courses and being able to apply these problem solving skills I had acquired with creativity in tech blew my mind. Prior to taking this course my senior year, I had zero clue what I was going to do with my life. I come from a family of first generation immigrants, so it was engrained in me I needed to apply my skills in something that was STEM related or really…just high paying. Having this pressure from my parents made me question what I really wanted to do in life — and if I would enjoy it. Taking this course not only paved the way for my skills, but I stumbled upon something that would fulfill me personally as well. I decided to continue on my learning through college, where I started my journey on a Bachelor’s in Computer Science. I attended Mizzou for my first year, but ended up transferring back home to UMKC! That first year was HARD. I thought about giving up constantly. I thought I wasn’t smart enough for the degree. I had no idea what was in store for me course wise, as well as the external lifestyle changes and working way too much to afford the school. I even changed my major to IT so I could still be within the field but with less of the challenging material! That summer after freshman year, I had a revelation. I had a plan to move home to save on costs, work full time so I could afford school, and stay on my original major path. I wasn’t going to quit that easy. And that’s exactly what I did. I started working full time as a receptionist at a car dealership, took a full course load, and switched my major back to Computer Science. Making that move did wonders for me, and the rest of my college career went by relatively smoothly, I did a few career jumps within those few years and ended up working for a couple public school systems in the tech department (where I am still currently employed!) I would love to give a huge thank you to Trey Katzer at Liberty Public Schools for taking a chance on me. Without that job, I wouldn’t be in this position today. The flexibility was amazing, as he allowed me to leave work to go take tests in class, and just make up time later. It was really hard to juggle it all, but I’m still doing it to this day! I am currently an online grad student at Mizzou (love you guys — I had to come back) and am working on my Master’s in Computer Science. During all of this craziness, I did freelance web development for anyone that needed a site. I am still continuing to do this, however, it has grown quite a bit and I have decided to turn this freelance work into a full fledged business! I am now the proud owner of Studio Eaden, which is a full service digital agency.

I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
It has not always been a smooth road! I didn’t come from a lot of money, and lived with my dad who worked two jobs. Life had its ups and downs. One of the more prominent challenges has been recent. My dad and my step mom moved back to their home country after living here for 25 years. Both my mom, dad, and step mom are from The Republic of Georgia. A huge challenge is balancing the time difference and adjusting to the only people I am related to in this country moving away. It’s been hard, and I miss them a ton, but we’ll get through it!

Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
I am both an employee and a freelancer! Currently, I am working at the Raytown School District as an Advanced Information Systems Tech — which just means I deal with software all day. Once that clock hits 4, I am in full freelance mode. I do web development and design, amongst a whole lot of other things in that realm. I am most proud of the work I have done at Walmart Global Tech during an internship with them, as well as the UMKC Roo News website redesign! Both of these projects were completed over the course of a summer and taught me many things that lead me to grow in my work. The one thing I believe that sets me apart from others is having both the technical and design skills to do web development. Being a one woman team, I have learned to take on the role of UI/UX designer, developer, QA tester, etc. that most major companies have in-house.

We’d be interested to hear your thoughts on luck and what role, if any, you feel it’s played for you?
I think luck has played a small role in both my life and my career endeavors, but I like to think that having a vision and showing up every day to get there has brought me to where I am. There has also been some times I thought I had the worst luck, but in the end — it was just redirection to something even better, even if I couldn’t see it in the moment.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.teaabus.com
• Other: https://www.studioeaden.com