Hi! Just thought I’d document my career pivot journey. I am writing this to share my ongoing journey and the things I’ve learnt along the way. I want to inspire others who may be experiencing something similar and hope that you learn from my journey. It’s tough knowing that you don’t love what you are currently doing and want a change but feel stuck. It’s always easier to stay comfortable and not take any action even though you wake up every day questioning “why am I doing this” and wanting to give up every day.
Everyone’s journey is different but what I’ve learnt is that you can create your own story. You can choose who you want to be and choose the actions you want for yourself. Everyone has their own purpose and passions — it’s up to you whether you are going to let yourself pursue them or let yourself pursue others’ purpose and dreams. Be a go-getter.
The Beginning
A little about my background, I went on a traditional education path. I spent 4 years in university to a speech pathology degree. I was really passionate about this field and I was so certain I’d be in this for a while.
But guess what, not everything turned out as I planned. I had a bad start to my speech career and throughout the 1.5 years in the field (it hasn’t been long at all, I know!), I know I don’t only want to be in this forever. I believed there was more I could learn and give to this world.
Don’t get me wrong, I love empowering, supporting and working directly with people with disabilities and their families (well, most of them) but I knew this wasn’t for the long haul and I had to do something for myself for once. I knew that working a 9–5 job isn’t scalable, working as a contractor wasn’t stable and I knew I wanted to set my own rules and have a career that I genuinely love.
The Birth of New Passions
Let’s go back to the final year of my speech degree, I started taking interest in UI/UX, crypto and startups. Innovation sparked something in me. I guess I’ve always had a passion for innovation and technology, and a spirit in me that wanted to create. Over the past few years, I took some short courses and read a lot online about design and started volunteering to design for my family’s business. Through this, I learnt lots even by being a solo designer on the team without much guidance and with my barely close to perfect designs, I began to grow. My eyes were widened to the possibilities of technology and how it can enable others. With my fascination with technology since young and being in the field of healthcare, I knew that the healthcare world needed more technologies and efficiencies.
So, I have thought about my career in healthcare and put it next to my curiosity in technology, design and innovation — I thought about this hard and decided to join a coding Bootcamp. I weighed the pros and cons, watched every YouTube video and read SwitchUp reviews. I know this is what will enable me to be an entrepreneur/designer/innovator/disability advocate.
Reasons why I am choosing to code
- Coding is a tool to enable you to be an entrepreneur and solve problems
- Code is enabling us every day and is all around us, and its presence will only continue to grow.
- Learning to code will help me become a better designer.
- Learning to code will enable me to enable others (including people with disabilities).
- Learning to code will help me be a better problem solver and thinker.
- Learning to code will improve my understanding of how technology works and this understanding will transfer to how I may come up with tech solutions in the future.
5 things I’ve learnt over the last 5 years
- You can never be 100% certain about the hypothetical future; circumstances change. Your plans may fail and it is okay to fail and in fact, it is good to fail.
- Always reflect and ask yourself “why” and then go search for the answer.
- If you want it, go get it. Don’t follow the status quo, be contrarian. You know yourself best.
- It is okay to change your career even if you think you have invested so much time, money and effort into something. Only you can choose and decide where you want to go.
- Make choices that will widen your opportunities and accelerate your learning. (E.g. Be involved in a community. We are not meant to work alone.)
Where to from here?
- I will continue coding and designing.
- I will continue being curious about the startup world; doing my research and staying up-to-date.
- I’m going to hustle hard to get myself into the startup ecosystem and continue to build my network.
Thanks for reading!
I will be adding parts to this series in the future! So stay tuned! Meanwhile, keep reaching for your dreams. We are all on a journey but it’s up to you where you want to go. 🚀🚀🚀
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