What would make someone switch careers into a field that is outside of their area/s of study? That sounds a bit crazy, doesn’t it? Yet, that is exactly what I am going to do. I have decided to learn software engineering. Why software engineering? Well, that’s a great question! It’s certainly not a spur of the moment decision; it’s been a process of me finding and learning more about what excites me.
Growing up I always loved learning new things and putting together puzzles. While in high school, I loved math and physics, which spurred my decision to get a degree in Civil Engineering from North Dakota State University. After graduating from college I decided to become a missionary with the Fellowship of Catholic University Students (FOCUS) to serve on college campuses, because I wanted to give back to the organization that had helped me in college and to be there for others in need. After four years of life as a missionary, I decided to moved to Denver, CO to get a master’s degree in theology from the Augustine Institute. As many graduate students can attest, school is not cheap and neither was living in Denver, so finding a part-time job was a must. I ended up in the technology department of the Augustine Institute. It was there that I was introduced first to HTML and then to CSS and I loved it!
Even though I enjoyed learning some of the basics of coding, I had no intention at that time to do anything with it. I continued my studies and after I graduated, I fully intended on moving back to my beloved home state of North Dakota and finding a job that would utilize my newly obtained master’s degree and experience as a missionary. However, God had different plans and I started working full time at the Augustine Institute with various content management systems and continued learning and using more and more HTML and CSS.
Several months ago, I started reflecting on my life, where’d I’d been and where I wanted to go and if I was happy. I came to the conclusion that I wasn’t being challenged enough in my current position and started very tentatively looking at what I’d like to do. I kept coming back around to coding, because that was the portion of my job that I liked the most, the part that gave me life and joy. However, it was a big commitment, particularly financially, and it seemed needless extravagance, since I already paid for and had two very different degrees. Why wouldn’t I just use one of them? I wasn’t sure if it was the right time to take the plunge. But then everything changed.
I experienced one of the weirdest times of my life. First, I got to work on a Monday morning and found out I was getting laid off, and then, later that same week, someone was murdered and several others shot in my apartment building in the apartment above me. Then news of coronavirus cases in the US started cropping up. I used this as the kickstart that I needed to begin taking seriously the possibility of a career as a software engineer and to finally return to North Dakota (I really do love it, which I realize many people will not understand!). I spoke with several of my colleagues and my brother-in-law about their experience in the industry and whether they thought it was something that I would be able to do. They gave me great information and encouragement, so I began to take a few prep courses and reading about JavaScript and Ruby and enjoyed learning about both languages.
I know it may seem strange to go from engineer, to missionary, to graduate student, to content manager, and finally to (hopefully) software engineer, but each and every experience has helped shape my thought process, my way of thinking. Engineering taught me to think logically, practically, and systematically, but it didn’t necessarily fulfill my desire to help people in a more personal way, which I was able to do as a missionary. Ultimately, I want to leave the world a better place than when I came, and I think that technology can help us do that, not in a remote, robotic way, but in way that helps the flow and communication of ideas, that connects the right people to implement those ideas, and provides an avenue for those ideas to become a reality and reach the masses. The field of technology is relatively new and there are so many different possibilities and I think if this pandemic has shown us how important technology can be to connect people to one another.