The Epic Switcheroo: My Journey From Finance To Programming
It’s never too late to code!
Welcome to my blog!
I started with what was a casual fling with coding, but a year on, I think I might be in love! Follow along for the love story of the century, as finance falls in love with programming. I promise it’s going to be one heck of a ride.
Hello, folks! This is my first blog post and it’s a personal one.
Table of contents
A little about me
I’m Harsh (signifying “happiness” in my native tongue, excuse the English meaning, lol), 23, finance graduate, currently an aspiring Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA). I worked as an equity research analyst, crunching numbers, analyzing charts, and preparing research reports. But… something felt incomplete and a specific question would constantly pester me as I carried out my routine tasks, “Why don’t we automate this?”; little did I know I would be switching from valuing Apple shares to building programs that could run on their devices!
I have always been awestruck by the varied fields in which programming can be applied and the urge to code always crept up as I was down the YouTube rabbit hole watching videos ranging from “AI Playing Flappy Bird” to “Art Using Programming”. Fascinating, to say the least. But I guess I always had an excuse to not board this train. Work? Exhausting. New skill/Change of career? Overwhelming. A year without pay? What will people say?
And then… The world came to a pause as COVID-19 hit us. I left my job to prepare for my CFA Level 3 exam, which ultimately got postponed and even though I did see it coming, it was frustrating. The first few months of the nationwide lockdown imposed in India were spent playing board games with my cousins. Perks of living in a joint family. As Netflix, Inc. was hitting its then all-time high price, I hogged on TV series and anime until I eventually got bored of it. YES! I GOT BORED!
The random burst of motivation
I finally decided to dip my toes into the world of programming through Harvard’s CS50 (highly recommended), as was suggested by my brother, which helped me build a good foundation. With the basics of programming in my grasp, I wandered through the puzzling path of selecting a programming language. After a few date nights with C++, I swerved to Python, eventually settling and committing to JavaScript as it seemed optimal for a full-stack developer.
But the said journey has been filled with ups and downs, believe me, it wasn’t easy. I was often overwhelmed with my screen painted in red, spitting out countless errors as I helplessly sighed (internal screaming), until a way out was at long last found. It has been a year since and I often ask myself,
What drove me to keep coding?
- The learning never stops!
“Once you stop learning, you start dying” aptly mirrors the programming world. I am often left baffled by the advancements in this field as new features, conventions, and standards are introduced. The continuous progress pushes you to keep yourself updated and relevant in the industry.
- Ever-growing and ever-loving Tech Community
Oh, the number of hours I’ve spent on Stack Overflow and GitHub, just to get my code to run. The developer community has always been helpful whether that be through the gotchas mentioned in the YouTube comments or while personally hitting up content creators on Twitter.
- And finally, having the skillset and power to build anything and everything
Possessing an arsenal of programming skills at your disposal opens up an ocean of opportunities to experiment and pursue. Ideas on paper can be converted to software being consumed by users, scaling to infinity. With programming on your side, the future, whether in the form of blockchain or Web3 starts to feel like a reality, keeping you invested throughout your journey.
Yoo! Great journey, but what’s up with the blog?
- Nervous! Nervous! Nervous!
Sharing something new or something you’re not good at with the world is a scary thought and this had kept me away from documenting my progress. After hours of procrastination and multiple torn drafts, this blog will be a true self-reflection of the past year and will touch on what’s in store for the future. The goal is to become confident and showcase both, my strengths and weaknesses, and oh, guess I’ll improve my writing skills along the way as well!
- If I can do it, so can you!
There was a single major obstacle on the path to becoming a programmer and it wasn’t a computer science degree, but a lack of self-belief. Successfully motivating individuals from varied fields to take up programming is a milestone that I would like to achieve. If you are truly interested in coding, I would like to emphasize it again, if I can do it, so can you! I got your back!
- Connect. Learn. Grow.
Oh, where would I be if not for the tech community? My sensei says, “All of the connections we encounter in this world serve as teachers who nurture us”, which encourages me to build a deeper connection with you, my fellow readers. Let’s have meaningful conversations and push each other to grow as programmers and as human beings. I’m looking forward to your comments, critique, suggestions, and pieces of advice!
Showing gratitude where it’s due
“Self-taught” is just a fancy tag. We as human beings rely on each other for our development and my journey wouldn’t have been rewarding had it not been for:
My first ever programming book! Python Crash Course: A Hands-on, Project-based Introduction to Programming by Eric Matthes.
All the lovely content creators on YouTube and other online platforms, impacting and changing countless lives unknowingly, you have my heart and respect!
And most importantly, my parents for their utmost support, never questioning my decisions and choices.
Well, we’ve reached the end!
Thank you for reading patiently and my journey has just begun, let me assure you, there's more to come! I request all the readers to join me along as I document my progress on Twitter and through this blog. Looking forward to engaging with you in the comment section and on my Twitter handle.
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It was a long read, but thank you for making it this far! See you soon!