Why Software Engineering?
Published: 2021-02-08 20:30:48

In early March of 2020 I was sitting in a hotel restaurant grabbing a plate for the continental breakfast.  I was in Seattle for a NCAA Division II conference basketball tournament.  My first year of coaching was nearing an end.  If we won our game tonight we would continue to San Diego, if we lost we were out.  I served myself breakfast and sat down to eat.  Looking around at all the empty seats made my mind start to wander.  It felt like a ghost town.  I am in downtown Seattle, at a popular hotel, eating breakfast completely alone at 8:00 am on Saturday morning.  I thought to myself, “Is this really happening right now? Should we be here? How bad is this virus going to be?”

We lost our game by 3 and flew back to Anchorage the next morning.  Next week all the advancing teams were getting ready for the next round of playoffs.  Abruptly all NCAA games got cancelled for the year.  We were told to work from home if possible.  

My contract ended in May, but I would be back with a new contract starting in August.  My plans were to fish commercially for the summer in my hometown of Haines, Alaska. The timing of the contract worked great for me. 

To get to Haines for the summer my wife and I would drive.  This requires you to go through Canada.  We had brought a lot of our belongings with us for the move to Anchorage and we needed to bring a lot of it back with us for the summer (let alone our vehicles).  

About a week working from home in Anchorage passed.  Rumors started swirling about the Canandian border closing.  It was mid/late March, I called my boss and told him about the border rumors.  He told me to head out and work from Haines for the remainder of the contract. At 7:00 pm, my wife and I packed everything into our two vehicles along with our two pets(cat and dog) and were on the road by 7:00 am the next day. 

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With fishing starting in late June I planned on running basketball camps for the month of May/June.  It was clear that was not going to happen during the pandemic.  I sat at home thinking about ways I could be productive during this off time.  

My sister-in-law Anne, who graduated from Flatiron School 6 years ago, was doing well and able to advance her career during this time.  I thought that was cool and wanted to look more into that field.  I read that software engineering is a good fit for people who enjoy problem solving, learning new things, and are detail oriented. This sparked my interest to take it a step further.  

In May 2020 I started a free course offered by Harvard(CS50).  My sister Penny and I started the class together to help and give each other support in the learning process.  Right away my mind was working in a way that it hadn’t for a long time.  I loved that part of it.  It quickly became very difficult, with not much educational support, and the fishing season closing in.  Once fishing started I lost steam on the CS50 course out of necessity to work in an environment without the internet. 

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August came rolling around before we knew it and heading back to Anchorage for my second year was in order.  I was preparing for the move back when I got a call from my boss.  He told me they were putting the contracts off until September.  I thought, “Ok, this is fine, I can keep fishing for a few more weeks and then go.”  The timing of the contracts continued to get pushed back.  Eventually it got pushed back to a decision in October. That meant not only would the earliest the contract start be mid/late October, but also they were not going to decide if there would be a contract at all until then.  

This put my life plans in limbo and my wife and I had to take some time to figure out what we were going to do.  We were fortunate to have a place to live in Haines, and after hours of talking about pros and cons, we decided with all the uncertainty we would stay in Haines.  

This eventually brought me back to software engineering.  On November 20th, 2020 I decided to start the Intro to Ruby course offered by Flatiron.  Talking with my sister-in-law gave me confidence that Flatiron would be a good route for me.  My plan was to apply for the software engineering program but I wanted to see how I liked the free course first.  

It turned out the course was great.  It gave me reassurance that this is something that I would enjoy.  The problem solving and creative ways of thinking were the main things that captured my attention.  Learning something new and difficult can be crushing at times but that makes it more rewarding in the end.  Working through the intro to Ruby course taught me a lot.  

Challenging and making yourself uncomfortable is hard to do, but it makes you better.  I knew after the intro course, applying for Flatiron School: Software Engineer was something that I needed to do. 

I have started the First Mile at Flatiron and am excited about the future.