The year I abandoned chemical engineering and taught myself how to code (Part 1/2).

2015 was a wild year for me, filled with uncertainty, self-doubt, urgency, and a whole bunch of sleepless nights as I pondered my future with graduation approaching.

I was in my fourth year of Chemical Engineering at McGill University. Located in downtown, historic Montreal, McGill was one of the best schools in Canada. I was grateful to be amongst such hardworking, driven classmates, each of them heading off to full-time positions in the field we all spent our last four years preparing for — to become a chemical engineer.

It was a little different for me. I certainly applied to all these jobs, but with my 2.7 GPA and the attitude of someone clearly not interested in this field, my email inboxes were overflowed with rejection letters.

You might be thinking — so why did I go into Chemical Engineering in the first place? That is fair to ask. I certainly did at that time. Simply put, I was good enough in math and sciences during my high school years in India, and even before that back home in Thailand, where I was born. While I’ve always had a passion for creative arts and wanted to pursue Architecture, my Asian parents had encouraged me to follow the engineering path, for the sake of my future (and realistically, theirs). I listened closely to my pediatrician father and mechanical engineering uncle and followed suit.

So I applied and got accepted to McGill University, alongside other good schools like Hong Kong University, National University Singapore, and the University of Toronto. I chose McGill for the vibrant city it resides in (and what is this thing called poutine I hear so much about?)

It became very clear early on that chemical engineering was not for me. I had taken a few courses and even spent the summer of my 2nd year in an internship in an oil & gas company in Thailand. I just felt like I was surrounded by people who not only were smarter than me but also more passionate about thermodynamics and energy balances than I was. But most importantly, I knew deep down that I was unable to operate at my full capacity. In short, I felt like I didn’t belong.

3 years and 2 failed courses later, as my 3rd year came to an end, I was unable to find any internships. Fortunately, one of my friends mentioned that there was a professor in chemical engineering looking for a student research assistant. This professor had a reputation for being brilliant yet demanding. But since I needed to find an opportunity for that summer, I sat down and passionately wrote to him to apply for the position.

I waited a couple of weeks and no response. I felt like he read it, but was not interested. But I was determined to get a response, so I sent another email. This time, I would be upfront about my weaknesses and address his concerns head-on:

Finally, three days later, an email appeared on my phone.

My intuition was right. If I hadn’t sent another email, this position would’ve gone to a more qualified student. But it was still uncertain, as I had to prove myself with the challenge.

The challenge itself was a coding problem. To be more specific, it was an engineering problem that required a few lines of code to compute and compile, using a program called Matlab.

Even as I am writing now, I could revisit the feeling I got when I read that email the first time. I had not done any coding before, and it was exam season. It was a combination of nervousness and excitement. The perfect ratio of each to get me started.

So I watched some YouTube tutorials, read some books, and completed the assignment. It was not straightforward but doable. After submission, I was informed that I have secured the position for the summer.

As a computational research assistant, I was assigned a computational research project that was previously given to a Ph.D. student. It was around microrheology or the study of nanoparticles in complex fluids. By placing a small nanoparticle inside certain fluids and capturing the random movements of the nanoparticles, we can determine certain physical properties of those fluids that contain them.

While it was a bit of chemical engineering lab work using lasers and high-definition cameras to collect raw data, most of my time was spent writing a program to process that data, clean up the images, and run a program to accurately capture the positioning of the particle in each frame and plotting a time series.

It was not a straightforward project by any means. Roadblocks, U-turns, and constant recalibrations were needed, but I persevered. For some reason, I was more motivated and confident than I had ever been in class.

Results started showing. I could see the progress that I made, and so could my professor. He offered me to continue working for him throughout the 4th year on a part-time basis and offered a position to continue the research as his Master’s student after graduation.

As my graduation approaches, my intention was just to stick to my four-year plan and apply to chemical engineering companies, with a Masters degree as a backup plan, as I was already unsure about the field and felt that getting a Masters degree would be like digging the hole of uncertainty deeper. But certainly, I should become a chemical engineer. That was the plan, right?

So I started applying for jobs. Days of no responses became weeks of rejection letters, to months of disappointment and self-doubt. As an international student, I was under pressure to find a job to stay in Canada. I consulted with a University career counselor during this period, who while helpful about resume changes, were also gradually demoralized by my empty inbox week after week.

Then one night, as I was about to go to bed, I asked myself

“What else could I do besides chemical engineering? I enjoyed creative problem-solving. I was an excellent Googler and like working on deep, uninterrupted work with music blasting through my ears. I liked gadgets and the technology, and is very visually driven. Wait…” 💡

💡

The feeling of a breakthrough was an unforgettable experience. Your heart starts to go into overdrive and your brain begins mapping out a million possibilities behind the newly-discovered door. How steps should you take first? What are the known unknowns? What are the unknown unknowns?

I made that decision right then and there, at 11 PM at night in my $500 per month Montreal studio apartment. I was going to become a software developer.

Once my mind was made up, the next actions were simply intuitive. The next day, I waited for the career counseling office to open, and entered my advisor’s office with a curious smile that nudged her curiosity. I passionately told her about my plan to hit reset and switch careers, expecting a cautious or dismissive response from her, or worse, a motivation to stick to my degree. Instead, she smiled, turned on the computer, and said:

“Perfect. I am going to give you a list of people who can help you out. After talking to all of them, come back to me and we can start planning for next steps.”

She mentioned that the energy and excitement that I carried with me that day showed how serious I was and that she was committed to helping me with this transition.

…to be continued in part 2 that I will upload very soon!