For my first post, I thought it would be appropriate to shed some light on why I made the decision to change careers. I will be graduating in June of this year, and it is amazing how quickly two years have gone by and how much I have learned since enrolling in this program.

I had originally enrolled in Binghamton University back in 2012 with very few ideas about what I wanted to major in or pursue as a career. I had family members who had business backgrounds, so I decided to enroll in some economics classes and, finding them to be fairly interesting, eventually chose economics as my major. After graduating I found myself in a full-time insurance underwriting role. I had no experience in this area and while it was overwhelming to get up to speed, the process of learning new concepts and working on a supportive team was a great experience. With that said, however, I had never felt truly passionate about the work I was doing. I ultimately realized about halfway through the four years I worked in that role that I was not going to be happy if I continued down that career path.

I had not been exposed to programming at that point in my life (although I wish I was given the option to learn it in school instead of being required to learn a foreign language that I ultimately never used), but I had been interested in computers and gaming from a young age. About three years into my underwriting job I decided to give programming a try. I enrolled in a Python Udemy course and was hooked right away. I continued learning as much as I could about Python and software engineering over the next year and realized that I had finally found something that I was genuinely passionate about pursuing as a career.

I eventually decided to take the plunge, quit my job, and enrolled in this program. Looking back, it is truly incredible how much I have learned in two years. I am grateful to have had the opportunity to be a full-time student over this time period as this allowed me to focus all of my attention on the curriculum and becoming a desirable candidate for a software engineering role. I am very close to crossing a significant milestone in this journey as I am waiting on hearing back from a company after my final round interviews, and am very glad that I will soon have completed my career transition into a field that I am passionate about.