FD
Good points all. At the risk of being BV-esque...
Despite evidence that I should do something else, when I was younger I envisioned myself as some sort of engineer. I started drafting when I was 10. My grandfather gave me an Alvin drafting kit for Christmas. I still have parts of that kit. I took drafting in high school and loved it. I was also into electronics by then. Out of high school, I enrolled in an electronics technology course in Florida. I was a B student. It was a fairly chaotic time of my life (early 20s) and I never finished. I gathered my resolve and entered University of Florida. I was in AF ROTC and began a pursuit of Aerospace Engineering. More personal chaos ensued and I dropped out. I ended up in MN in 1988. I again enrolled in a trade school in pursuit of an Architectural Drafting degree. After one summer as an intern with an architect, I quickly learned that my personality was a poor fit for the indentured servitude of an Architectural Draftsman/floor sweeper. I switched to Mechanical Design where I was finally able to draw curves. I was in my element. That was around the time when most places were switching over to CAD, so I had a good dose of both board drafting and CAD. I was an A student and I was surprised to find out that some of my work done in the early 90s is still being used as examples in the curriculum there.
After that, the plan was to enroll in the U of M and pursue a ME degree. But the summer after graduation I got a REAL job making $10/hr. I was finally able to eat something other than Ramen and I could even buy my own booze. Fat with cash, thoughts of going back to school faded and instead I went after chicks. Eventually finding the one I'm married to. Career wise, I muddled along from one mechanical drafting job to another. In more than one case, I made some costly mistakes with my drawings. This usually happened when a project would drag on for more than 3 months. Short attention span.
I continued to attempt getting a college degree. I took most of the prereqs for engineering, but it just wasn't working out. The math was elusive for me. I don't have enough left brain. I could do the work. I even enjoyed it. But the devil is in the details and I often screwed those up. Not a good place for engineers to screw up. I began to envision myself being in charge of something really important, messing up on a decimal place somewhere and killing 100 people. Honestly, that's how I started to see it. At that point, my engineering prospects were finished.
I still love drafting and I do a little here and there for people when they need it. I'm very good at machine design and with everyone I work with I make it clear that they need to be responsible for checking the details. These are usually small parts. Machined parts or small weldments. It's spotty enough that I don't get bored. But there's no way I could go back to doing it for a living.
While I was in high school, I had a few computer programming classes. I became obsessed with it, often staying after school until the lights were turned off and I was told by the custodian to go home. As a CAD driver (AutoCAD), I started fiddling around with AutoLISP. I became very good at it and wrote several extensive software packages. The most elaborate being a package that could take a 2D floor plan of a house and build the entire 3D framing model and generate a cut list, including doors and windows. Right after I finished that project, the company I did it for went out of business. I continued to do AutoLISP development and even consulted with Autodesk for a time. But that language has fallen out of favor (thank god). As weird as AutoLISP is, it gave me a good foundation for pursuing software development. I worked my way through everything from Borland Pradox's scripting language (which morphed into Delphi), VBA, VB6, C, C++ and a handful of other languages including PLC programming using ladder logic (very cool stuff), Postscript (programming in postscript is the biggest nightmare I've ever experienced), and a variety of markup languages.
Eventually, I ended up working for a software development team. Just sort of fell into that position. That's where I got my .NET experience. I learned a lot about how to manage a team of developers. Actually, I learned how NOT to do it since the team lead we had was one of the most incompetent people I've ever worked with. I applied with my current employer in '10 as a JavaScript developer (nevermind that my javascript development experience was practically nil). They hired me. The interesting part was that the original posting had a requirement for a college degree. In order to hire me, they had to modify the posting to read 'college degree or equivalent' and I had to reapply. That was a gimme.
I moved into my current position (same company) in March. The posting was 'Sr. Application Developer'. Again they had to modify the college requirement. I was hired. The day I started my manager left to another division. We were leaderless for a few months. When the new manager was hired, her understanding of my role was as the Team Supervisor. I didn't try to correct her. I saw this as an opportunity to prove my leadership skills. New territory for me, but I soon found it to my liking. I get to use my creativity in ways I never dreamed about. I don't have to be detail oriented, since the guys I hired are much better at that than I am. I enjoy the challenge of navigating the excruciating bureaucracy and removing barriers so that my team can get its work done. This leadership thing is appealing and I want to expand my influence. I think at right angles to the norm and so far my track record has proven that my ideas work.
The business I am in (energy trading) is very fluid right now. At our company, it grew without direction and I want to be a part of expelling the chaos that is holding us back from being successful. I can't do it where I am now and I can't get to where I want to be without a degree. I've had a couple mulligans, but it stops here. I can't say that I'm particularly fascinated in Finance, but I do believe I can do well with it. Sure, it's detail oriented. But it's a different context. Or maybe I'm just more mature. I see the purpose in this degree more so than engineering. Ultimately I see myself as a leader in some technical capacity. Hell, even with a finance degree I could probably swing an engineering management position somewhere if I wanted that.
In any case, I think this is the last chance. Otherwise, I may as well wait until my 60s when I can retire and go take some classes at the Landings School
