Hi there!
My name is Ernie and I am from San Francisco, CA. If the title of my blog isn’t obvious enough – I come from a healthcare background and recently decided to pivot to computer science. Whenever I meet someone for the first time, the topic of my career change comes up, so that will be the topic for my first ever blog post!
Being raised in a traditional Asian-American household instilled the idea of pursuing a career as a doctor, lawyer, or other prestigious professions. From the start, I acknowledged that I did not want to practice as a doctor so I opted for pharmacy school. Until this point in my life, I felt content with where I was with adequate grades and extracurriculars. I can see myself working as a full-time pharmacist in no time.
I was wrong.
My last year in pharmacy school was my clinical year where we finally experienced the role of a pharmacist. I had my own set of patients, conducted one-on-one counseling, and assimilated into the pharmacy workflow. To keep things short, I had a lot of negative experiences with colleagues, mentors, and even patients. It was that year that I knew that becoming a pharmacist was no longer an option for me but I just stuck through with it until the completion of the program because graduation was so close. The funny thing is, I couldn’t even make it to my own graduation ceremony because I fell sick with COVID.
If I am being honest, I had no real experience in the healthcare field prior to enrolling in pharmacy school. I remember in high school and undergrad that many people recommended students to “shadow” healthcare professionals. I never did that myself so I could only blame myself for not seeing the real world in action. Would I tell my previous self or anyone else thinking about pursuing a career in healthcare to get a feel for a clinician’s day-to-day work? Absolutely.
Don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed my time in pharmacy school along with the friends and memories that I made. In fact, I still keep in touch with a handful of my former classmates. A lot of my personal interests still lie within the pharmaceutical realm so I hope that one day I can work for healthcare technology or something similar.
Now you might be asking, why computer science? Money? Job security? Work-life balance? It’s a combination of all of that plus other factors. Reflecting upon my life, I’ve been surrounded with technology all my life like having my first computer at the age of seven. In undergrad, my housemates majored in computer science and I would often joke to them about, “What if I majored in computer science too?” Funny how things turned out for me, didn’t it?
If you made it this far, I’d like to thank you for reading my first blog post. I promise my next blog post won’t sound as gloomy but will reflect my positive experiences in computer science thus far. I hope that you will continue to follow along my journey!
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