Why did I decide to study Software Engineering?

Let me start by saying, because this is the first time I write a blog post, answering this question is a challenge for me.

I have been living in the United States of America since 2016 and I’m from Venezuela, I came here with my family because the political situation in my country is not an easy one to deal with. Since I was young I love technology and knowing how things work, for this reason, I decided to study Informatics Engineering.

At the University I learned about the hardware and software in computers and this last point interested me more. When I started to study, the monitors were monochromatic and I had to introduce commands by keyboard, at that moment the mouse was not so popular, we used a 1.44 MB diskette to run the operative system, and this for me was something amazing even at one point, I thought to myself: “oh my god I’m in the future now”. For this, I have felt fortunate because I have seen how technology has grown in all these years.

After I graduated, I worked as a Computer Technician at a computer shop for eight months, after that, I found an opportunity that changed my professional life, I began working at a private university as a development engineer for fifteen years. In the beginning, it wasn’t easy because obviously, I didn’t have enough experience for a big challenge. I had learned a lot of theory in the university but until that moment I never used it. I was learning with practice and constancy until I was a big element inside of the IT crew. In this university, we used to develop programs with a tool called Power Builder, which is a great and robust tool for that. We did a complete overhaul of the academic and payment systems. These were developed as client-server systems.

At one point the crew was divided into two units, one for client-server (where I was) and the other for Web Development. I got good at fixing problems, designing and developing new requirements, but above all, customer service. But unfortunately, at that moment, I don’t know why… maybe because I got in a comfort zone at my job… that learning about web development didn’t interest me all that much.

After that, as I said, in the beginning, I came to live in the USA but for lack of trust and self-consciousness with the language, I worked in other areas different from software development. Also, I had to survive. I worked as Dishwasher, Insulation Installer, Electrician (I have to say the latter experience was great for me), and, finally at Amazon Fulfillment Center. Here I’ve worked for a year in the Stow Department, during the first days of this year at a break time when I am walking to the break room I saw a poster that said that Amazon offers courses for their employees, taught by Flatiron School. The name of the program was Software Development, specifically, Web Development. And I thought to myself “this is the opportunity that I’ve been waiting for and I didn’t even know it”, with this I’ll go back to do the thing that I like the most, and this time, finally I’ll learn about Web Development. It’s never too late to learn.

This is why “I decided to study Software Engineering”.