I am obsessed with software engineering - I love everything about it. From the satisfying way an elegant design comes together to the pride in seeing what you’ve help build solve a problem. No other profession could give me such challenge, satisfaction, and endless possibilities to continue to learn.
And I almost entirely missed out on it all! In the 10th grade I had to choose between a computer hardware course and a computer software course - I chose the hardware course. It focused on PC components and administration mostly. But there was small scripting assignment that showed me what I was missing.
At this point I was in the 12th grade and I had missed the 10th and 11th grade software prerequisites. But I got special permission to take the 12th grade software course. I didn’t need it to graduate so I though “hey, it’s okay if I completely fail”.
Even still, I was terrified of being behind. I was determined to learn as much as I could on my own and when the course finally started I was shocked to see that, if anything, I was ahead of where the 11th grade courses left off. It turned out to be my favourite high school course, and I knew that I was going to apply for either software engineering or computer science programs in university.
And that’s exactly what I did! Fast forward to today and I’m extremely thankful that I was lucky enough to fill that empty slot in my schedule all those years ago because it’s led me down the path to the career of my dreams. Where every day I can solve interesting problems, work with incredible people, and continually grow my skills to carve out new and interesting opportunities.