How I became a software engineer
// written in 2020: tools, versions and prices may have changed since.
High School
I went to school, where the graduating class was only 200 people, and there were not any programming classes. Neither one of my parents were STEM majors; both were blue-collar workers with zero interest in modern technology.
Because of my parent’s lack of interest in technology, our household did not have a computer until 7th grade, and it was only for homework assignments (MS Word).
I stumbled upon programming during my senior year of high school. I began checking out webpages and books about it but still wasn’t interested enough to commit to studying it in college as a major.
Community College
It was during my classes for Electrical Engineering that I began to take a serious interest in it because homework and lab assignments began to start requiring programs for completion.
Also, my professors were excellent programmers who mentioned that it was a remarkable career field compared to traditional engineering fields because it was not as stressful and still paid well.
So, I began to read books, the first being How to think like a computer scientist and others about web applications.
After cultivating a basic skillset, it became a competitive edge for both academic and employment opportunities. Because I knew the basics, I was able to get a 15 USD / hour job at the college. The job was lax and allowed me to study while working and also shocked me because my previous exposure to jobs required me to only work and not have time while on the clock to do anything else, plus it paid more.
It was then I decided to take programming seriously and selected it as a major as a transfer student to the four-year university.
University
I struggled at the university because the typical student profile was one that had taken several years of computer science/programming classes while in high school. So the professors taught as if everyone had the same experience.
I, on the other hand, had barely just begun learning about computer science and programming.
However, even though I was an A- to mostly a B- student with a 2.9-3.0 GPA.
Yet, I was able to stand out at career fairs because I focused on building web applications, cloud technologies, and machine learning, which were all trendy buzzwords at the time and were things my classmates were not doing. So I competed on a playing field that I stood out on rather than on the purely academic one that my classmates crushed me at with their 3.7-4.0 GPA’s.
Internships
I did an internship of almost every type; I tried research, start-ups, and industry and found that industry is what I enjoyed best since it involved solving problems at a large scale, and it paid more for the same kind of work/environment that research and start-ups have.
I went through a lot of “no’s” to get my first “yes,” but once I did, it became more accessible, so keep trying.
Conclusion
I stuck with my internship while completing my four-year computer science degree and accepted their offer upon graduation, thus becoming a software engineer in the title.
I am currently going on my second year in industry where I am growing into a professional software more and more each day. I firmly believe anyone can get into IT with enough practice and guidance.