Week 1: My way into the tech world

Welcome to my very first blog to record my capstone process. My name is Chang Li, living in bay area, california. I love snowboarding and just started to learn surfing.

Path down to the tech

From philosophy student to MBA

I cannot believe I have gone so far from where I started. My steps to the tech industry are quite unusual. I started my first degree in philosophy school at Renmin University, China. At that time, went to a better university was quite important, which means better professors, better colleagues, better choices when graduate.

Through the study, I found myself not interested in academic research in the philosophy area nor became a journalist nor became a politician after graduation, these are popular choices in our school. Because I’m not a top student in my major, it was very hard to exchange to other majors in other schools.

I had all my coursework finished before my senior year, and went to Shanghai for a full-year internship in VOLVO car distribution corporation as a marketing specialist.

With this experience, I successfully got an offer from the University of Missouri MBA program. I’m so happy about my decision. The progress in the MBA program was so challenging for me. A different knowledge base in a different language, full of adventure every day. This is the first time I got to touch a little bit of code when learning SQL database and SASS analytics.

From MBA to Computer science student

After graduation, I really want to get a job in the States. Because of international student limitations, I had to locate a job with a company can sponsor my H1B working visa. All my fellow international students planned to go on a graduation trip and then go back to China. I decided to drive through to California for more opportunities.

I was lucky enough to land a job as a product marketing specialist in an online education company, which was focusing on filling the gap between tech education and the tech industry to help students land a dream job in tech companies. This was the start of my final transition.

In this company, I met a lot of talented and enthusiastic programmers. When I knew they can write a program to track all their financial investments or simply get more recruiter emails, I was amazed and shook about how individuals could benefit from programming. I worked there for almost three years and found my career path will be quite narrow as an employee holding H1B.

Why not take another step to the area that attacks me, this is not the first time I did so. After got all my thoughts together, I decided to quit my job and apply for the online CS program at Oregon State University.

For this term

This is almost my last quarter for the program. I learned a lot. Hope I can land a dream job and dive deeper into the tech world. Our team will work on Dating App for Animal Adoption project. I have two cats adopted in two different humane societies. I always think it will be better if there is an easy access app or website for animal adoption. Good luck with everyone’s project! Have fun!