My path from Industrial field into Tech field
Doing career transition is one of my tough decision, especially to the career that you are not familiar with. But somehow, people always find something better for themselves even it’s hard.
My name is Cheuchheang, a Full-stack development bootcamp student. I would like to write about my story about what I did and what make me decide to change my career path in the end.
To make it easy for you to understand about my life, I will divide my story into 4 parts:
1. My University Period
2. My Working Period
3. My Decision Making Period
4. My Bootcamp Period
My University Period
After I graduated from high school, like a lot of other students we didn’t really know what we wanted to do or wanted to be in the future. I felt lost, so I asked for advice from my cousin who had graduated with bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering. As the result, I decided to follow his footstep by trying to enroll at the same university and enter the same major. I just studied day by day even I wasn’t sure whether I suit that major or not. After my first year, I had no passion for study anymore, my result wasn’t even good. So what should I do next? I wanted to start over again, but how could I do that without wasting my parents’ money again. “Scholarship” yes, I needed to get a scholarship. So I applied for a lot of scholarships and in the end, I got a fully funded scholarship that I could study bachelor ‘s degree without paying anything. At that time, I though the future will drive by automation and robot so the jobs related to it would be in demand after my graduation. That’s why I chose to study Mechatronics Engineering.
My student life had started again but different university and different major. At this time, I promised to myself that I will study hard and give all of my time focus on studying. This time, I was so excited and happy with my study. In 1st year, it was my first time to learn coding and know about programming. There was a subject called “Computer Programming”. I really enjoyed it and passion about this subject. I felt so confident when I could write code to solve problems. As you know, Mechatronics Engineering combines mechanical, electronic and electrical engineering systems, and also includes a combination of robotics and computer science. So I learned a lot of sensors and automation system. But the part that I enjoyed the most was software part. I like coding and solving problems with logical ideas. In my last year, I started looking for a job. I was so worried about my future after graduation, where I work, what kind of job I want. After graduation,I got a job offered as a Quality Assurance Officer. In the interview, I had to do some tests such as English, Logic, and general engineering knowledge. I passed those tests and had to interview with managers, they were friendly and offered me a position of Quality Assurance Officer.
My Working Period
So in my role, I had to response for Customer claim. When customers found any NG (not good) about the products, they informed back and I needed to share information and arrange a meeting immediately with other concerned teams if it was the urgent case. As a QA, I had to understand all of process in the production lines in order to conduct an investigation to find the root causes and get rid of them forever. This role needs a lot of critical thinking and problem-solving skills to analyze the process and find the real root cause.
My Decision Making Period
After working as a QA for 1.5 year, I had started having questions about myself such as: What I’m doing now?, Do I really want to do this?, Am I happy about my current job? And most of my answers were negative, so I started to know about myself that my life was on the wrong direction. From that time, I started to be serious about life and find what I really want in life. I try to looking for other jobs that can fulfill my passion and make be happy for long term. Finally, I got my favorite job that must suit me perfectly — a software developer. During my bachelor, I learned coding but mostly, it was related to electronics like micro controller. So I need to train more skills if I really want to be a web or mobile app developer. Anyway, I couldn’t go back to get another bachelor degree, so I was looking for some short courses that lets me boost my development skills faster. I got recommendation from my friend about a full-stack coding bootcamp. It was a 1-year-course that train full-stack both front-end and back-end. What a great opportunity! I didn’t hesitate to apply and got selected in the end. Because this bootcamp had 3-hour-class in the morning, so I had to resign from my job.
My bootcamp period
The bootcamp were divided into 4 modules:
1. Basic web development: HTML, CSS, JavaScript,…
2. Front-end: Nextjs, MUI,…
3. Back-end: firebase, mongoDB,…
4. Cloud: CI/CD,…
I learned a lot of web development skills that can let me use these skills to build my own portfolio website and other side projects. I really enjoy working on front-end, styling the website were so fun. I could work on back-end also, anyway. During the bootcamp, I want to get some work experience because I think it would be a great for me to use it as the credit to looking for a job after finishing the bootcamp. So I had an intership as a software developer at a real estate company. In this role, I worked on front-end of internal websites that give me chance to learn about the code in real projects and professional technique from seniors developers in the company.
Now, I nearly finish my bootcamp and the good news is I just got job offered as a junior react native developer from a company in Thailand. I’m really excited about this and I’ll do my best for this opportunity.
To conclude, I want to say that you can do what you want in life and you can stop doing what you don’t want in life. Career Transition is a difficult decision, but it’s possible. It’s successful or not depends on your preparation and your clear goals.
Thank you for time to read my first article! I wish my article can encourage all of you to dare to change. It’s never too late to change your career.
