Studying chemistry

I was good at every subject at school, but at the same time no single subject interested me at a deeper level. My favourite high school subject was definitely math, but I knew I didn't want to study pure math.

Enrolling into university

When the time came, my options were Computer Science and Chemistry. I convinced myself that I do not have enough knowledge about programming and computer science in general to be able to graduate from it and not fail. Yes, a top of the class student convinced himself at 18 years old that he wasn't good enough. So I chose to study chemistry, which was a subject I was good at in high school and since we actually had a lot of chemistry, I figured the university can't be that difficult to complete.

The realization

As I already explained in my About page, in my final university year before graduation, I realized my favourite subject thus far in the Bachelors program was Introduction to programming with Python. Yes, a non-chemistry subject, with my second favourite being math. Both of these were from my first year of university and I think you can see where this is headed. I decided to start exploring my options for Masters and to continue learning how to code. At the time, the only change I could make is to enroll in a Masters degree in chemical engineering instead of chemistry. I took my chance and 5 years later, it was the best decision at the time.

Chemical Engineer - the right path?

There were still lots of things I disliked about my Masters but in general everything seemed much better than my Bachelors. More problem solving, more practical examples, learning modern approaches and solutions, things like fuel cells, solar cells, smart materials etc. Some time along the way I started leaning more into coding and I fell in love with frontend. That's a different story I will cover in another post. All I will say for now is that this bachelor to masters transition was the best decision I made at the time and I never looked back.

Sometimes the best career decisions are the ones that feel uncertain at the time.