I went to delete my last sentence and suddenly felt apprehensive about hitting the backspace button on my laptop because I've recently started taking a computer science course and using backspace is not conducive to writing a computer program! It's like electric shock therapy, every time I click backspace I make a mistake and have to redo what I just did.
Otherwise though, the online computer science second baccalaureate program at Oregon State University has been smooth sailing so far (I'm a week into the program so who knows what I'll think in a couple months, plus I'm only taking one 4-credit class this quarter, and the most basic class at that so it'll definitely get harder) and I haven't lost my nerve, gotten hopelessly confused, or broke out in tears yet! It's an online course, so I can listen to the lectures, read the materials, and do the assignments pretty much anytime I want, and still go to work. The whole curriculum is kind of designed for people like me, who have a job and another career but want to get another degree in computer science on the side. Why computer science? I feel like I need to improve myself in case this whole law thing doesn't work out, and there are career paths in the intersection between law and computer science (patents, intellectual property come to mind) as well as computer science jobs in it of themselves. I'm following my still-developing job market playbook (2nd edition, published 2011) of following supply and demand: there seem to be a large supply of jobs requiring a technical degree like computer science, I hope to satisfy that demand. More importantly, I do think I'm improving myself and learning something new to further gain an advantage for the next 30 years or so of working (man, that sounds like a long time).
When I was in college and law school, I never really thought about switching out careers or changing my major or quitting altogether because it was just the thing to do, go to college, get a degree, get a job. I was too naive to make an informed decision and just went along with it, figuring it'd pay off someday. There were times 1L of law school when I toyed with the idea that law really wasn't for me, but I brushed those off and powered through figuring that there would be a beaucoup-salary job waiting for me at the end of the rainbow. Now that I have much higher opportunity costs, though, with a job and other responsibilities as an adult, it's much more of a gamble for me to invest in a degree that I might not need or might not be able to complete, but nothing worth getting is easy. Computer science is notoriously one of the hardest degrees to get for undergrad, and for those reasons I like many others shied away from it, but that makes getting one all the more valuable. I hope to learn a lot about functions, if else statements, programming, and this whole other world I've never been that interested in but know that I should in order to keep up with the times.
Now back to loops, if-else statements, variables, module operators, linux servers, and a bunch of stuff I'd never heard of!
Fantasize on,
Robert Yan
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