Journey to Being a Programmer - Essay Example

07-10-14 My Journey to Being a Programmer I am the last born in a family of four: two boys and two sisters. I grew up in town where I had a chance to interact with many people including my father’s business partners. I consider myself lucky because, unlike my elders, I had a chance to attend some of the best childhood schools in the country. I will forever cherish my childhood experience. Our family started from very humble beginnings. My elder brother and sisters all grew in mainland. Life was not easy then as none of my parents had a stable source of income. Thus, my elder brother and sisters studied in local schools where fee was relatively cheap. We only moved to Hong Kong soon after my father secured a job as an accountant. After saving for a while, he was able to open a restaurant business for my mom. Luckily, for me, I began going to international school. Living with my parents in the modem and developed city provided me with an opportunity to learn so much about business and were probably one of the reasons why I developed interest in business. I recall vividly how my father could take me along in his business trips. In these trips, we always met high profile people with whom they conducted business. Whenever we came back from the trips, I could tell my mum about the fascinating experience I had. She always reminded me that in order to be like my father, I first had to work hard in class. As time moved on, my interest in business grew. This was partly because of the business trips that my father took me, and my mother was an entrepreneur. Our house was always full of business talk. Upon realizing my interest in business, my parents supported me and that created a self-belief that I could actually grow to become a great businessperson. By the age of 13, I remember I could accompany my mother to her restaurant during my vacations. While with her, she delegated some duties to me. For instance, she always asked me to welcome clients, a task I performed graciously. With time, I was assigned even bigger roles. Another reason that made want to be an accountant was to help people set up their businesses. My thoughts were that accounting was the best field any person could want to study, with all these decision and encouragement I decided to study overboard for a better future. Everything was in my plan before I came to America, then I had an encounter that forever changed my career aspirations. After my college orientations had been finished, I started choosing my classes for the first quarter. I realize most of the prerequisite courses did not have any space left, so I enrolled computer science, which I never had any contact with it while I was in Hong Kong. The professor, the lectures and the whole subject had utterly amazed me. I always thought revising and homework were full of pain and struggles; it was the very first time I enjoyed studying that I could focus on my lab projects for couples of hours and keep pushing myself to develop them to be perfect pieces. It became one of my most enjoyable moment of my life. Meanwhile, it has also become an impact on my yearning. The incident left me disturbed for a very long time. It was especially frustrating when many of my mates were asking me for resolving their bugs and problems on their programme, as they described me as a reliable person who has something special for it. I thought that maybe with that technically gifted trait, I could accomplish more than I can as an accountant in the future. After a long soul-searching, I changed my mind; I wanted to be a programmer, and maybe then, I could be of leading designer and executer in the field of my favourite hobby – gaming in the future. It was not an easy decision to make considering I had already expressed my interest in business. Deep in my mind, I knew my father could not immediately decipher my sudden change of career interest, especially when he had set up all the connection for me to be more successful than he had. Unlike him, my mother was the understanding type. I, therefore, had to rely on her to convince my dad that I, more than ever before, wanted to be a programmer. In my second year, my father was still hesitant of my career choice. Since my mum was on my side, I always knew that, at some point, things will turn around, and my father would finally come around the idea that I want to be a programmer. I began getting involved more in extracurricular activities including visiting the IT companies and taking part some of the projects from the Developers’ Guild which is the computer science club in my college. During my vacations, I began spending my time in computing plug-ins and mobile apps for my own convenience as opposed to earlier times when I was always at our restaurant. Last summer, while, in summer vacation, we had a special guest came to Hong Kong. My auntie Zoey, who has been working in the IT department at a bank in San Francisco came here to give the institution for bank workers in Hong Kong to explain how the new features in the banking system operates. Often am a guest to her house during Chinese festivals, therefore, I was invited to be one of her assistants. I spent few days understanding her materials and experiment on them. It turned out I became capable of answering and solving most of the issues from the workers, and they made me felt accomplished and worth the time to be prepared and helped. A few days after the job was done, while I was working on my applications, my dad told me that he needed us to talk. He started by narrating how Zoey had told him of my involvement in her lectures with her fellow students. He was so touched, and that moment that he decided to help fulfil my wish of becoming a programmer. I felt so humbled and thanked him for finally making sense of what I wanted to do in the future. I am now quite happy that I will finally pursue my dream career of being a programmer. I will be glad that my services will be dedicated to the future of technology. When I sit down and reflect how I changed from wanting to be an accountant to being a programmer, I realize that the world around us is entirely convincing. The events that happen around us, largely, determine who we become in the future. Read More