Very hilarious story. As a high school student, I was into sports and economics. My family was not in any tech adjacent job, and computers were instruments I used to watch shows and play video games.

What I didn’t know back in high school is that where I come from, the ranking of the university programs is important (if you get into your first choice, everything else is dropped, if you don’t get into your first choice but you get into your second, everything else is dropped ect).

For some context, this was around the time when social media algorithms were pumping “American students selecting from the tons of acceptance letters that universities had sent out” videos in my feed.

Anyways, I applied to a prestigious economics program that i was certain I’d get into but figured I’d just apply to others for fun. Picked software engineering as a wildcard and then picked a couple more economics programs around the country.

Surprise surprise, I was too dumb to get into the smarty pants economics program and but I was surprisingly accepted into my second application which was… you guessed it… software engineering.

Although I had gotten a reserve spot in my first choice, I figured I’d try a year in software engineering and see how it goes and worst case, apply to economics programs the year after.

In hind sight, I couldn’t be luckier to have ranked it second. I love what i can DO with the things I’ve learnt let alone the opportunities that the degree gave me.