Hello to all who venture onto this blog! I will be using this blog to document my journey through the capstone project and my final quarter at Oregon State University.
My name is Yashar Zafari, I was born in 1994 in Seattle Washington. I am Iranian, and grew up visiting family in Tehran every summer. During my childhood I had the privilege of living in a wide array of different countries which include: Indonesia, Brazil, and Iran. But I have been living in Seattle since 2004, and this is where I call home. In my free time I enjoy playing videogames, traveling to new countries with my wife, and have recently picked up golf.
I spent the first few years of college unsure of what field I wanted to pursue. Eventually I settled on Civil Engineering as I appreciated the job security and how applicable and in demand the field was. When senior year rolled around however, I was worried that I wasn’t job ready yet and that I had more to learn before I could work professionally as a design engineer. So, I decided to apply to master’s programs to further specialize in Structural Engineering.
Two years went by, and I became a proud owner of a Master’s degree in Structural Engineering. I still didn’t feel fully ready to work (pre-impostor syndrome I guess?). However I was not ready to apply to a PhD program just to get more ready…
Anyways, I got hired as a structural engineer at a small local firm designing residential homes/townhomes, mixed use buildings (1-2 retail floors, 3-5 residential floors above that), and shoring for large scale projects. The work was interesting and I was learning a lot and quickly. After 2 years or so, I slowly started to realize that I was not enjoying the work as much as I thought. The projects started to get repetitive and I started to feel uninspired.
It was around this time that the pandemic hit. Forced to stay indoors and fill time, I discovered The Odin Project. Having had some programming experience in python from my master’s program, I decided to give it a shot and see where it would go (I didn’t really have much else to do anyway). After a couple months of steadily making progress, I realized that I wasn’t all too bad at it and wouldn’t mind further pursuing the field of computer science.
Motivated to make a career switch I started looking at avenues to break into the field of software engineering. Self-taught while free, had a hard barrier to entry. And I did not trust myself to see it through without external motivators. I considered another 4 year degree program, but couldn’t really afford the time commitment and financials to take it on. Bootcamps were another option, and I came damn close to signing up for one and doing it. However, somehow, by some stroke of luck I happened to learn of Post-Bacc programs. Immediately I saw it as the best option for me. What wasn’t there to like about only taking core courses, asynchronous lessons, and an official diploma at the end?
I applied for admission and was accepted for the Winter 2021 term. A handful of classes later and here we are. I’m hoping to leverage my degree to break into the field of software engineering like so many of my peers here at OSU. The job market currently is a little spooky, however just gotta keep on truckin’.
Thanks for reading this first post. Looking forward to sharing the rest of my journey with you all.
– Yashar
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