Personally, I’ve always loved the process of taking things apart, understanding how they work and putting them back together. I turned that into a degree in mechanical engineering and eventually a career in power plant operations. Couldn’t be happier with my work than I currently am. Its WORK but I don’t hate it and I feel like I’m doing something important.
Mom wanted me to go into music performance. I went into computer science both because “holy shit how cool is that” and to get out of music performance.
My alma mater had three computer departments: CSC/CompSci, CIS/Computer Information Systems, and Graphic Design. I’ve never been artistic, really, so I didn’t have a lot of interest in Graphic Design. But I didn’t know the difference really between CIS and CSC going into college.
I went to the head of the CIS department to ask about the difference and he was like “CSC is about building the plane, CIS is about flying the plane.” Misinterpreting that to mean CSC was about hardware and CIS was about software, I thought I wanted CIS. When I met with the CSC head, he met with me in a little lab in the CSC department. And on the shelves on the walls, there were robotic coin sorters and Lego robots and stuff. And that’s basically when I realized the CSC department was my people.