Today on my blog, I want to take the opportunity to mull over what motivated me to apply to OSU and begin the process of a career change. Like any big decision in life, I have a few reasons for undertaking this journey and I’m sure I can’t be exact in how all those reasons interact. However, I think it’s worthwhile to try and tease out a few discrete categories that motivated me to take on this challenge.

One of the first things that come to mind when I think about my hopes for what a career in tech will look like is the creative aspect of software development. Before I started at OSU, I worked for several years at a call center. While the company I worked for boasted a stellar company culture, with great benefits, above average pay for the sector and role I was in, and a relatively good outlook for long-term career development, I felt my trajectory at the call center would not offer opportunities to build things or solve technical problems creatively.

Often, problems I would work on resolving for customers would come down to navigating at times byzantine company policies, and several layers of distributed and obfuscated responsibility for making final decisions on those problems. This meant that I would have to do a lot of research through internal documentation (which I understand will be a mainstay in my future as a software developer as well!), reaching out for final judgement from superiors, and having to wait for final resolution to come down from on high.

In contrast, the nature of software development appears to offer opportunities for even junior developers to figure out their own solutions to programming tasks. Even with code reviews and other forms of feedback, there is still a large degree of autonomy and personal creative empowerment as a software developer, and that really appeals to me as an aspect of a job!

Another aspect of software development as a field that appeals to me is the diverse range of opportunities in the field, as well as the ever-changing nature of those opportunities. Software developers can specialize and hone their skills in all kinds of different areas, and it seems inevitable that no matter what area you are working on, software development will always be a continual learning process.

Finally, I like that idea software development is not just a career, but also a skillset that empowers you to build your own projects! The more I learn about how to write code, the more excited I am about learning how to see my own ideas to fruition, even if it’s just for fun on the side. Other jobs I’ve worked have been more in the service and health care sectors, where you are having a tangible impact on people’s lives but not getting to build tangible products.

Thanks for taking the time to read this blog – thinking over why I decided to pursue software development has left me feeling quite motivated, and I hope it has motivated you, dear reader, in your pursuits as well! Till next time.