Growing up as a kid I never really knew what I wanted to do. I just followed what the rules of the game or institution and got by. This sort of system was decent at first, but as soon as I started my senior year of highschool I realized I couldn’t imagine what to do next with myself. I was near the end, and had to follow a bunch of new rules. I felt like I couldn’t think for myself and thus applied to a community college to see what interests me.
In my early years of college I chose subjects that I thought was interesting, but never really stuck to it. All I knew was that I didn’t want to do something math related because I didn’t think I was smart enough. So, I gravitated towards things that I felt didn’t need to use math like psychology, video, and Japanese language. At one point I really wanted to major in Japanese and ultimately live in a Japan. I made a lot of friends though this and I felt really happy to learn, which I haven’t felt in a long time, but then I thought if I would do that then I would only be some guy whose only professional skill would be speaking. A skill that anyone can do, and everyone needs to use.
The thought depressed me, but I didn’t want to give up language just yet. So, I attended the UH fair, to see if there was a program that would interest me. While there I stumbled across a booth with computer science, it was next to some math tent. I didn’t like math, but I thought computers were cool, even though I knew nothing about except that somehow I kept getting viruses on mine. I talked to the faculty in charge, and they expressed that I didn’t need to any upper division math classes and that I could combine computer science with an art.
Hearing this made me feel like I could do it, especially since I thought it would be cool to work with computers. Yet, I had no idea what it was, I actually at first I thought it was using applications like Photoshop or fixing a computer, so on my first day I was like “What the heck is coding?”.
Although my first class was difficult, it was fun because I could create games, which was one of my dreams as a kid. Plus, I felt like I was learning. And it wasn’t any kind of learning, like the learning you do in highschool, it was something I’ve never known before and I felt so powerful and creative. Plus I could still study Japanese, and at the time it made me feel happy. So, I stuck it out and even though I struggled and get frustrated with programming, I still want to try because I think computer science is cool because you can combine so much stuff. It’s like making art out of nothing.