Some people grow up knowing exactly what they want to do. I knew that I didn’t want to choose. I had so many interests, so many things that fascinated me about the world. How could I favor just one? Now, over the years, I’ve come to understand the beauty of specialization. The profound advantage of deep and nuanced understanding of a particular subject cannot be overstated. But what I’ve also (thankfully) come to understand is that specialization, or deep entrenchment in one peculiar subject, can blind you in a way. I’ve had a lot of incredible opportunities to broaden my experience in life (flying planes, teaching English as a second language, working as a professional cellist on a cruise ship, managing a restaurant, etc.), and each thing I have dived into has taught me something about the previous thing and prepared me in some way for the next. The in-between, the space that exists in the distance from one subject to another, holds so much.
Over the years, I’ve had a lot of different jobs in a variety of fields, but my career for the last 10 years has been in the world of coffee. Most people don’t think of coffee as a career. People’s primary point of access to the industry is through the barista. Baristas are usually transient, occupying that space until their next “real” opportunity comes along. But the second I became a barista, I knew I had to find a way to make coffee a sustainable career for myself. And for the most part, I’ve been pretty successful in that pursuit! I’ve gone from customer facing to education to management to production and back around a couple of times, and though I know for a fact that coffee can be a career that lasts a lifetime, it is not an easy path to choose. In 2018, there were an estimated 1.7 million coffee related jobs in the United States and a higher than normal rate of growth in the field. Not bad! But a majority of that growth is happening at the very lowest end of the field where it can be extremely difficult to make a living.
So for the last year, I have been searching for a career path that would be engaging, has a high rate of growth and plenty of jobs, while still offering me opportunities for constant personal growth and creative thought. Boasting over 4.2 million jobs nationwide (in 2019) and an even higher growth rate than coffee, software engineering has made its way to the top of my list. Once I started consuming the free online resources that are so widely available in an attempt to teach myself what I could, I quickly saw that this was a career that I could truly enjoy.
So here I am! I couldn’t be more excited for the next ten months of my life. Working full time and going to school part time (while trying to quell the ever growing stress of a global pandemic) is going to be a challenge, I know, but it is one that I am wholeheartedly accepting. I know that the next ten months are going to teach me a lot about software engineering (obviously), but I have no doubt that, on a daily basis, I will learn something new about coffee, about aviation, about music, and perhaps most importantly, about myself.