From biologist to programmer – my story [part 1]

Hi guys! It’s the time of year, when polish boys and girls have to finally decide what to do in life and which studies to take on. That’s why I wanted to tell you a little about all of my decisions which led to me to the point in which I’m now. Because I am not one of these people that started writing code in kindergarten, no… I wrote my first line during IT studies, at the first lab class.

It all started…

In primary school I was a humanist. I would write silly poems about anything and take part in writing contests, often taking some high places. When my best friend and me had to write a story for a polish class, we would compete with each other who writes more pages. Our essays would be like 10 pages long. At the end of primary school we even wrote a book. :) At that time I would think about all sort of crazy professions, for example a dog behaviorist. I was also fascinated by computers, but I would only play with some html, flash and simple forums. I liked games, but I mostly played The Sims with my best friend. We really were masters of the Sims. Really. ;)

In secondary school I had a really nasty polish teacher, so I kinda lost my heart for it. On the other hand, I had a really great biology teacher, so I quickly started to learn more and prepare for some contests. At the same time I would go on extra IT classes, when I was making a website about Lord of the Rings. It was an awful website, really and I would only use some CMS to add articles. Out of the corner of my eye I was seeing some boys being taught programming, I now think it was C language. It looked terribly complicated for me and I thought I’m too stupid to learn about it, so I never asked my teacher to join these boys. And he never proposed it. So I mostly focused on studying biology and became really good at it. I won a contests which opened all high schools for me.

Also at that time I was reaaally into anime and wanted to go on Japanese studies.

In Poland when going to high school it’s important to choose a right specialization. I knew I would be accepted in any class, so at the first place in the formula I wrote down a humanist class. I now shudder with disgust when I think about it. Luckily at the last moment I changed my choice to chemistry – biology - physics specialization, kind of a medical class as all of the people choosing it would dream about becoming a doctor.

As my second choice, which wouldn’t really matter, I chose an IT class. I think I secretly really wanted to do this, but still thought I’m not smart enough. My IT teacher laughed at me when I told him about that choice and I didn’t even feel offended.

The wakeup call

During the first year at high school I was really into that medicine stuff. I even conducted my own research on plants seeds. The only problem was that I didn’t actually see myself as a doctor. Nor a biology teacher. One day I was watching a film trailer and a thought stoke me – I want to do this as my job! I started searching for studies and I decided to go the film making school. My mum said that’s totally stupid. :) But I already felt that inner excitement which I was lacking when thinking about medicine. I started thinking about IT studies and felt that excitement again. I looked at the schedule – I felt that I really want to study all this computer science topics! The amount of math was kind of scary, but it didn’t matter – I liked math.

And that’s when the hard work started. I only had elementary math at my medicine class, so I had to take extra classes. I also to take extra physics classes. And I still had to learn extended biology and chemistry to pass the year – getting lower grades was not the option (thanks mum…). It was hard, but I enjoyed it – I really wanted to go for that computer science studies.

When final exams came it turned out that my hard work made sense – I got 100% points from the extended math test. :) Thanks to that I was accepted to my dream school – Warsaw University of Technology.

And that’s when the fun started. ;)

to be continued.

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