The journey to becoming gainfully employed one day
I started the program here at OSU in the fall of 2019. At that time I was working as a research technologist at a research lab at Northwestern. With a biology bachelor’s degree, there aren’t that many jobs that don’t involve being a lab tech or lab manager. A biology major is usually a stepping stone to graduate school (for a Ph.D.) or to med school, none of which I was all that enthusiastic about spending the rest of my life doing. I had coded before in high school and undergrad and enjoyed it, and especially after taking a Webdev BootCamp offered by Northwestern, I felt like I needed to make the change.
I didn’t feel like I was ready for a job after the boot camp, due to a myriad of different reasons. So here I am in 2022, taking my final quarter of courses at OSU. The job search process has been tedious and hectic. Do I look for internships or go straight for a job? Coming from a different career field I do wonder if getting an internship will be better to gain some experience in the field? What type of job do I want and where? Am I in a position to be picky at all or should I just be happy to get an offer? These are a few of the questions I have while I apply for jobs at the moment and I am sure more questions will come as I continue.
What kind of job do I want? I have found Python to be the language I enjoy the most so far, so in that regard being a Python developer would be alright. I have also enjoyed mobile software development and enjoyed using Flutter. This quarter our project will be in Swift and having had a lot of interest in iOS development I hope that it might be able to open some doors into iOS developer jobs or internships. And of course, as I stated earlier I do have webdev bootcamp experience. But to be honest I don’t enjoy HTML, CSS, or Javascript all that much, though it won’t necessarily stop me from applying to web developer jobs.
So here I am. Hopefully, I’ll be able to get a job that I enjoy and in a city (or if I am really feeling adventurous – a new country) that I like. Till then I’ll keep applying and applying till I get something. Here’s to hoping 2022 will lead to positive results.
