Why why why?

The best decison I could have made

One of the most common questions children are asked is ‘What do you want to be when you are older?'. In my opinion this is quite a difficult question to answer. Not many people have a firm idea of what they really want to do. There are of course those who know exactly which career direction they wish to pursue, medicine for example. However, for most of us, finding that one thing that is going to spark your interest and kickstart your career is quite hard to discover.

This is the exact problem I had. I was not sure what to do upon leaving school. I knew I wanted a career in something but the question was ‘what?'. I was never really one of those people who desperately wanted to go to university but I fell victim to the pressure of everyone I know going and the teachers at school pointing me towards it.

I ended up at university on a Digital Media course. I had picked this course as it looked quite broad. However, I quickly found that it was not that appealing to me. I did not enjoy the university life nor the course and this made it clear to me that this was not my path. The one positive that did come from this experience was discovering code. There was a small module I studied called ‘Creative Coding’. We only spent a few hours a week studying it but we made some cool projects in Javascript. It was this that really got me thinking about code.

I decided to leave after a couple of months and so far this has been the best decison I could have made. I have managed to teach myself the basics of code and from there launch this website. I already have plans to launch a second site and potential to start working on a project with my first client in the new year. This is something that I would not be looking forward to if I had remained at university. It is safe to say that I have done more work in the few weeks I have been teaching myself at home than I did in the short time I spent at university. I feel much better about life, teaching myself something that I am interested in for a fraction of the cost and with a view to get out into the job market as soon as I can in order to gain valuable experience and knowledge.

I have admittedly taken a bold step in leaving university so soon although I feel it was the correct decision for me. I'm documenting my journey here in the hope that others who too feel lost and unsure that what they are doing can take something away from this. As long as you believe it is the right decision for you then it will be.