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'I don't understand, why would you leave a promising career as a petroleum engineer for online work?' says Dad. Why put in so much effort in school for five years and then abandon it to pursue something else?' I had this conversation with my father a few months ago.
As a child, I aspired to be many things. In elementary school, I argued frequently with my peers, parents, and teachers, and I was convinced that a career in law was the way to go. Moving on to secondary school, I realized I excelled in sciences, and after aspiring to be a Surgeon, a Biochemist, a Geophysicist, and finally choosing a career in Petroleum and Gas Engineering, I was convinced that was the way for me to go, and it made sense because oil is considered liquid gold, and the career was prestigious in Nigeria.
I got into university and, despite doing well in my chosen field, I always felt like an outsider. Something didn't click for me, and I realized this after graduation.
I gave this backstory so you would understand that software development was not my first career choice. I excelled in computer science in secondary school and I can remember competing with friends in writing codes in BASIC and QBASIC, which were taught at the time. Even though I wasn't studying computer science, I was the go-to person among my friends for anything computer-related, so the passion had always been there, it just needed to be rekindled.
My first exposure to software development came during a six-week AIESEC winter exchange in Benin, where I met some computer engineering students. The way they spoke and reasoned captivated me. They gave me some advice on how to go about software development, but I wasn't interested because I was focused on oil and gas.
My interest in software development began during my final year of university, when I had to create models to monitor oil circulation in drilling operations. I was disappointed that I couldn't use Python programming, which provided me with more flexibility and options, and that I had to stick with MATLAB.
I was naïve to the fact that a successful and sustainable career path existed in Software Development until I scrolled through a friend's social media status and came across this aesthetically pleasing landing page during the lockdown. I was captivated by the technology used to create it, and when she explained that she had to design the user interface of the application using Figma before implementing it with HTML, CSS, and a JavaScript framework, React, I knew this was exactly what I was looking for; I immediately had a burning desire to learn the software development that I had struggled with and eventually gave up on during my final year. I was driven by the desire to find problems and solve them with code. In addition, my desire to create incredible user interface designs that are scalable and usable by people all over the world fueled my desire to pursue a career in software development.
I've always been a problem solver, which led me to pursue a career in Petroleum Engineering, but this time, I'll be solving the world's problems, particularly those in Africa, one code at a time. Since then, I've remained committed to a career in software development. Every day, I learn and re-learn concepts in order to reach my goal.
What were your thoughts on this article? If you had to choose a career based on your interests, would software development be your first choice? Please let me know in the comments.