It’s not often that one finds themselves in the middle of an ocean storm; but when land is a speck beyond the horizon, and the dense fog, wind, and rain have made that same horizon a distant memory, I hope that you remember to look for the stillness amidst the waves.
I had the privilege to be an at-sea fisheries observer on the second largest fishing boat in the world, and my Dutch coworker at the time used to call the stormy days out at sea “de kleine wereld” — the small world. As the diffused light of the moon softly shining through the mist allows you to only see two meters ahead of you, and the ground seems to actively work against your balance, you realize that de kleine wereld, much like its larger counterpart, is not always your friend.
In my experience, three feelings arise from being caught in a naval storm. The first, and most dominant feeling, is the sheer panic of being encased in a metal container being tossed around like the last sea sickness pill in a near-empty bottle. Second to that of course, lies miasmatic nausea reminding you of that day’s lunch. Beyond that, however, lies a calm unlike any other.
Your possessions, your coworkers, your passions, and your life are all on this boat, and this vessel is currently at the mercy of the winds and the waves.
There’s a clarity that arises when you finally resign yourself to the elements and realize that you have zero control of a situation. In this clarity, I found an internal voice echoing the following words in my heart:
“I don’t want to do this”.
I feel that everyone expects to have some sort of career crisis during their life, I just didn’t expect mine to happen at 24 years old. But this internal voice would not be stifled, there was more in this world that I needed to explore, and so, I quit.
I didn’t have a plan, I didn’t have an idea, I didn’t have a direction. I just quit.
I had the fortune to experience a variety of roles during that time, a seemingly endless search for myself through different careers. I didn’t like talking about working in marine biology then, I didn’t feel like I had enough experience to say I left it behind, but I also felt like I abandoned an entire world, however small.
I had to take stock of myself, what did I want to do?
What did I even like to do?
I remembered how much I enjoyed writing my thesis in bioinformatics so I took some coding courses online. To my surprise, I was able to pick up some languages fairly easily (and others with much more difficulty). Despite this, I always found myself lacking something, whether it was structure or motivation, I felt like I needed more.
After asking countless questions to the admissions department, I signed up for one of Juno College’s free tech workshops. I was reminded of the days where I would meticulously craft my marine bio-filled Tumblr and was instantly transported to the excitement that I felt when my code would work after so much trial and error.
I chose to sign up for Juno’s web development and Java courses that night.
I had found what I wanted my world to be.
I then drove across the country on a whim and went right back into school after years since my departure from academia.
From cod to coding, fishing net to the internet, and sea to CSS, I was terrified of this jump. In these two-week accelerated courses however, I found confidence in myself and my skills as a front-end developer. From our first “hello world!” exercise to our API integrations I knew that not only would I succeed if I persisted, but that my classmates would be there to support me throughout the entire process.
As I write this, I am currently in the second week of Juno College’s web development program. I am proud to be a part of such a wonderful community, and I am convinced that my cohort has some of the most interesting and caring people that I could have possibly met at this stage in my journey. At 40 hours of in-class time and 20+ hours of homework each week, I can’t say that it hasn’t been difficult, but I am impressed at the progress that I’ve been able to make. I am overjoyed to be a part of Juno’s Cohort 37 and each line of code feels like a reaffirmation that this was the path that I was meant to take.
We might not find ourselves on a literal ship floating on a very literal ocean, but we all hold a storm within ourselves. However lost we may get in our journeys, with enough time, the tides will always bring at least a piece of you back to your shores. I believe that someday I will return to marine biology, but my dream is to do so with the tools that I learn from this beautiful journey that I’ve decided to embark upon. If my cohort mates have taught me anything, it is that our kleine wereld doesn’t have to feel so small, as long as we know that we are setting sail on our own course.
“Man cannot discover new oceans unless he has the courage to lose sight of the shore” — Andre Gide
