The first time I told my father I wanted to learn how to code, he thought it was a great idea. It was a warm, sunny Sunday afternoon and we were on a Skype call from my flat in Mumbai, where I had moved to a few months back to work with an international development NGO. As the conversation progressed and I elaborated that I was strongly considering changing careers, and going down an entirely new path, I could sense his original encouragement stiffen into doubt and eventually, discouragement. Are you sure? Have you thought this through? You never showed interest in this field before, why now? Do you really want to throw away the last 8 years and do something 16 year olds are better than you at?
Up until this point, everything I had done previously had ‘made sense’. I went to college on time, graduated early, found a job right away in a promising career field, then left for a better job a couple years later. 7 months ago, I left that job in San Francisco to move halfway around the world to India to essentially work for free in a field I felt passionate about. Even that move could be viewed as defensible from a logical standpoint as the role was most likely only going to be temporary and if things didn’t work out, well, at least it would look great for business school.
However, a funny thing happened in India, as I was rolling along this path I had originally set out for myself. I realized looking good on paper does not equate to feeling good about your career. Thinking you know what you want based on what society, peers, bosses, and your social circle tell you does not necessarily equate to what you REALLY want. After I finished taking the GMAT and began looking at business school applications, I saw a variation of one question that kept popping up over and over again: “Why do you want to pursue an MBA? Why now?” As I pondered this seemingly simple question in my head over and over again, knowing full well that the honest answer of “because I’m not sure what I want to do with my life” wasn’t going to cut it, I realized I could not, for the life of me, come up with a good answer. Maybe it was time to rethink everything.
What had originally brought me to India was the desire to do something tangible, something impactful. At my previous job, there would be many times where I’d be working a 70 hour week, writing some 15-20 page memo on some obscure derivative, knowing full well, that maaaaybe, 5 people would end up looking at it when I was finished. Working hard wasn’t the problem. Working hard doing something you knew made absolutely zero impact in the real world was. Call me idealistic, call me naive, but I knew I needed more.
I had never been overly interested in the tech industry before. I had no interest in coding in high school. I didn’t spend my college years dreaming of creating my own tech start-up. Sure I loved the iPhone as much as the next person, but I never seriously considered having a career in the tech industry until recently.
The light-bulb moment came when I did a walking tour of Dharavi, the largest slum in Mumbai and one of the largest in all of Asia. As I walked through the narrow alleyways, taking in the hustle and bustle around me, one thing struck me more than all else. It wasn’t the trash on the ground, or the amount of economic activity going on. It was the fact that, in a place representing one of the densest areas of individuals at the bottom of the pyramid in the world, there were smartphones everywhere I looked. My tour guide had one, the middle-aged lady on the corner had one, the teenager buying candy had one. If modern technology was here, where in the world was it not?
In today’s world of internet and interconnectivity, if I really want to do something tangible and impactful, what better way than through the medium of technology? Sure I can make business plans and create financial models for farmers, or analyze their crops’ supply chain, but there’s no guarantee that he’ll listen to me, much less implement my advice. Even if he does and everything goes well, my work will only affect a rather small amount of individuals and plus, true habitual change is really hard (especially if it requires more work). What if I could create an app that gives farmers live updates to daily crop prices or connect them with neighboring farmers to increase pricing power by aggregating supply? What about a database of best practices for each of his crops based on current weather and soil conditions? The potential for technology to create solutions for many of the world’s problems is enormous and ultimately, I find that very exciting.
Tomorrow, I start an intensive 10-week ‘bootcamp’ that will serve as my introduction to the world of software development. Is it scary leaving a promising career to go down a completely new path? Absolutely. Do I have fears that I won’t actually be any good at this? Of course. Do I doubt that this is the right decision to make at this point in time? Not at all. In my heart of hearts, this feels like the right thing to do. It comes closest to what I feel I REALLY want. I’m not sure how things will play out in the end but as the great Steve Jobs once said, “You can only connect the dots looking back”.
Dive & Maximize 