COULD I REALLY BE A SOFTWARE ENGINEER?
Chelsea Merrill
Hello all!
My name is Chelsea and I’m new here, like, brand new. Breaking into this field for me was more like a crash landing on an alien planet. If you have stumbled upon this message with little to no tech skills and are deciding if this is a path worth pursuing, I’m your girl.
I’ve spent the past several years dedicated to a mental showdown with the timeless question “what do I want to do with my life?” From a young age I was driven towards a path of success. But what did that mean? At the time, I envisioned such a linear yellow-brick road; do well in school, get good grades so you can get into a good college, work your butt off in college so you can get an entry-level job at a good company, and then work your way up the chain. My juvenile philosophy was that my dedication and handwork in school would lead to being able to kick up my feet and say that I’d made it. I was always so focused on getting that fresh out of college job that I never even stopped to consider my life passions. I was impossibly ignorant to the mediocrity and redundancy that would soon envelop me.
For over half a decade my contribution to the workforce was being successful at repetition; research this, fill out that, submit those. Being a cog in the corporate 9 to 5 wore out faster than those gray, fabric, cubicle walls. I had absolutely no connection to my work and it was abundantly clear that I needed to re-spark that information hungry, inquisitive fuse that I once had.
So how did I get here? How does someone who couldn’t even tell you what a database was a year ago end up teaching other people how to code?
For the first time in twenty years I started to ask myself “what excites me?” As I looked down at my Law School and Grad School acceptance letters I knew instantly that it wasn’t them. I formulated a list with everything that interested from pottery to politics and the common denominator was produced; I enjoy things that I get to create. Getting my hands in the dirt and conjuring up a product that makes both me and the recipient happy fills my dopamine tanks. And at the heart of it, that’s what Software Engineering is: creation. You don’t just start with a blank canvas, you start with formulating that canvas. Sometimes, you even get to take someone else's canvas and paint a little flower of your own on it.
I am a firm believer that a person who takes pride in their work will not only develop the best product, but will also maintain engagement and have a positive outlook on their work. If that is you, if you love to really be a part of your work, then this industry may be for you. There is a level of autonomy that comes built in with this career so that even when you are handed a specific project, you still maintain a creative freedom under the hood. I never would have imagined that something so technical would allow me to creatively flourish.
The second aspect of this field that captivated me is the never-ending, intellectual stimulation. The fact there is always more to learn keeps you on your toes. And I don't say this in a philosophical “there's always more knowledge out there” way. I quite literally mean that you will constantly be learning and changing your code. There are endless ways to get to a plethora of solutions and as you discover them you will be optimizing your work alongside your knowledge. Every individual in this industry has a unique style to their coding and as you become exposed to these styles you may find yourself incorporating bits and pieces of their methods into your own practices . And it’s not just the people that will evolve your skills, the very nature of this field will constantly be changing.
Every single day people all over the world are contributing to the optimization of development. Think about how fast this industry has already changed our normalcy. In just my 27 year lifetime alone Software Engineers have taken a tank of computer and shrunk it into our palms
created nearly 2 billion websites, and turned video games into an unearthly experience. And these only scratch the surface of what you can do in this industry. Every single sector of Software Engineering will change as the world changes so don’t ever get too comfortable with how you develop.
Taking the bootcamp through Nebula Academy not only changed my outlook of what the tech industry is, but it also electrified a passion within me that drove me to success within the program and consequently gave my future a 180 and launched me into this new world. For years I was intimidated by the idea that this was an intellectually impossible and mortifyingly boring career but I was astounded to discover that it would be the place that all of my ideas, hunger for learning, and passions would come to flourish. This field has so much to offer for anyone who enjoys being both hands-on with their work and thrives off of being stimulated.
