My father spent his career as a software engineer, mostly at Texas Instruments. Over the years I learned that he was somewhat of a child genius, doing things similar to what Elon Musk talks about doing in his childhood. My dad grew up a little differently than Elon, however! Nonetheless, he has told me stories about buying some old computer that was like one of the first you could buy, and coding various things on it. This he did in high school, by the way. Oh, I almost forgot to mention, he taught himself how to program when he was 13… What a nerd, right? Wrong. He was like the popular 80’s rocker dude in his high school that everyone loved. I met one of his friends from back then who told me how my dad would set trends, creating his own style which others would follow soon after. Anyways, so when I was much younger (like elementary school) my dad tried teaching me how to program. I still remember it to this day, him sitting next to me, walking through this tutorial with me. I think it was Visual Basic he had me learning. To my regret, though, I was not at all interested. I just wanted to go play and do something more exciting, like play video games or something. I think at that age I just couldn’t see the value in programming, no matter how hard my dad tried to help me understand. Well, look where I am now! It would’ve been really cool to have started programming back then, but hindsight is 20/20 I’ve been told. Truthfully, I’m happy I didn’t take to it back then because I wouldn’t be where I am today. Side-note: I just looked out my window and saw a black crow walking across the roof of the apartment across from me. I hope that isn’t a bad omen… that’s just cats, right? My dad used to tell me throughout my whole childhood about how good a career in software engineering is. The rebel I was, I never wanted to work in a cubicle the way he did everyday. I was very opposed. I tried at college a couple times before getting it right; first I started in psychology, then dropped out and took a couple years off. When I went back I wanted to do electrical engineering but my school didn’t offer that, so I went into a physics major. Lo and behold, I do not have an aptitude for 3-dimensional visualization (I know this from an actual aptitude test I took before I went to college the first time). So after a few painful semesters, I switched my minors and majors. Now I was majoring in math with a minor in physics. Looking back, my biggest motivator for this was to graduate early. I foolishly thought that having a degree would get me a job, which, it did, but… not quite the job I was hoping for. Interestingly, I ended up with a software engineering job at a defense contracting company about an hour away from where I lived (but close to my school). I had very little coding experience, though I did have some at this point from a research project I worked on with one of my physics professors. After a few months of this commute to a cubicle, I was burned out. I wanted to work in software, but not like this. This company was very traditional, with lots of overtime and no work-from-home opportunities. When the pandemic started, I decided to pursue the post-bacc degree at OSU with the wildest dreams of getting a remote job where I could spend my workdays coding on the couch next to my dog, Chief. I am proud to say that this dream was not so wild, and on May 31st I’ll be starting a fully remote 3 month internship that will hopefully lead into a full-time position! I am very grateful for this program, and the long road that has led me here. Thanks for listening to my ramblings, and for reading my software journey. Cheers!