How I Became A Developer

What if I don’t get in?

This was the main thought I had near the end of my Health Science degree. I had wanted to go to PA (Physician Assistant) school after graduating but had to apply and interview in order to be accepted. It hadn’t actually occurred to me prior to that, that I might not actually get in. I should have had that thought plenty of times, but there I was.

Luckily one of my friends was getting his CS degree, and talking with him changed my entire trajectory.

I wanted to break the cycle

I was the first in my family to go to college. I wanted to break the cycle of working dead-end jobs, and not be in a challenging field. Finding out about CS, and experiencing an intro course got me hooked. I loved seeing what I could make the computer do, and even though it was very basic, I thoroughly enjoyed the challenge.

If I could change anything it would have to be leaning into technology earlier.

I enjoyed playing games as a kid, but I also took to computers and fixed them early on.

I didn’t think there was much of a future there though. The medical field was highly visible, and I never knew any programmers as a kid so I didn’t have exposure outside movies showing hackers. I was also under the impression that you had to be a math genius to work with computers, and I was far from that.

In the end, I found a local coding boot camp and worked my way into becoming a developer.

I broke the cycle eventually

To say that becoming a developer changed my life is an understatement. I went from working retail and restaurant jobs to making a good amount for the area I’m in, to be very content and creatively fulfilled. I used to dread going to work, and now I work from home.

It took a lot, and a very long and meandering path to get here, but I hope to help as many people as I can make the same transition.