I have a very long and complicated history with computer science and coding. Growing up, I was always into tech and figuring out how to put things together. I was always the one to set up the consoles on the TV, set up the computer whenever we had to get a new one because of viruses (which were probably my fault cause I was a dumb kid), and generally fix the tech stuff in the house.
Once I got to middle school or so, my life became increasingly complicated with major life crises and familial changes in dynamics. I honestly didn't think I would amount to anything in life during those years. It actually wasn't until college that I saw a future for myself where I heavily considered counseling as a career. As I progressed through college, I realized that medicine was within my reach.
Ever since I was a toddler, I had been interested in medicine. My first set of scrubs and a stethoscope was gifted to me when I was six. Those formative years in middle and high school had me feeling as though medicine and a career as a doctor were completely out of reach. Then college came along and introduced me to a new world and environment of learning. Most of the kids in STEM classes were there because they wanted to be, not because it was required by law. I was able to form connections and a network of peers that wanted that kind of success. This is where my trajectory in life changed for the better. I started pursuing my bachelors on a pre-med track. But computer science was always in the back of my mind.
In 2016, I started taking free coding courses online. Mainly HTML and CSS because I didn't really know what I was doing or what I was interested in. Then in 2018, I built my first computer. But life got in the way and I was more focused on medicine and clinical hours again. Cut to December of 2021 and my computer breaks, like blue screen of death, dead. So, I built a new one in 2022 (which is still my baby today). Also in 2022, I had an opportunity to pursue data science, and I worked my butt of to learn Python for the interview. It came down to me and one other person, but they went with the other person because it was an internal hire unfortunately. The kind of soured me on the whole computer science thing. Then around 2023, I started working in an academic research lab and I loved it, it was super awesome and I got to learn some really cool things, but by 2024, I found myself doing the same things everyday with a mentor who didn't teach me anything new or give me my own projects. So, I turned back to computer science and I've taken quite an interest in the cybersecurity aspect of computer science. I started learning Python again, but then in 2025 I had to take a break from it so I could focus on my graduate admissions exam (I did great on it, thank you very much).
Now, I'm in a new academic lab with a mentor that teaches me new techniques and allows me to perform experiments from start to finish. Also, it turns out, programming can be a huge boon to those in scientific research positions. Therefore, I've started to learn R, a programming language for visualizing scientific data. Not only that, but bash can be useful for research as well as Python. So now in 2026, everything has come full circle for me. I get to combine science and medicine with computer programming in order to advance my own experiments, help others in the lab, and I have the opportunity to learn more and more everyday.
(I'm probably still going to look more into cybersecurity though, just in case)
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