My journey to Oregon State University started in the Spring of 2019. I’d been extremely fortunate working as a Mechanical Design Engineer on many fascinating projects, from nuclear attack submarines while an intern in college at Florida State University, to aircraft carriers upon graduation, to aircraft and helicopters upon moving to Seattle in the mid-2000’s, and then finally to megayachts in Portland, where I am currently. I couldn’t have asked for a more varied and diverse set of opportunities working on state-of-the-art machinery and systems.
Early in 2019 I learned that the yacht design company I was working at was planning on relocating to the Midwest by the end of 2020. I knew I wouldn’t be coming along. This wasn’t as bad of news as anticipated, as I’d already been contemplating moving on to the next adventure, as I felt that the job had run it’s course. I considered looking for another job in the same field, but I’d always had a curiosity about coding and Computer Science in general, so I started exploring ways to potentially change career fields.
I’d dabbled with different programming languages for fun in my spare time, mostly with HTML, CSS and JavaScript. I made some progress and a few fun websites and took some classes from Team Treehouse when they were still around, but I never really had a good grasp of what Software Engineering entailed. While hanging at my neighborhood watering hole, I struck up a conversation with a regular I was acquainted with after a tough work day. He asked what it was that I did, and what I would do if I could switch something else entirely. I mentioned maybe something coding-related, and this was where the conversation got interesting.
I learned at this point that he was the Vice President of Engineering at a Software Engineering company in town. He did most of the interviewing and hiring of Engineers and told me that since I already had a degree in Engineering, rather than going to coding boot camp, I should apply to a post-baccalaureate program somewhere as it would put my resume at the top of the stack. I’d never even heard of this being an option before. The next thing I knew, he had his laptop out and we were on the OSU EECS Ecampus website, as it was one that he knew alumni from and had heard many great things about. I went home that night and slept on it, and then decided the next morning to start gathering the materials needed to submit an application. A few days passed and I applied, and three weeks later, I was admitted, and here I am today, thanks to a few beers and some small talk. Cheers to that.
