This is a story about how I understood that coding is an important part of not only the tech culture but also life.
The Back Story 😎
I was in my tenth grade when I had decided that I'll be pursuing Electronics Engineering. Two years later, I was doing the same. Why? Because I found physics interesting: The Physics which was related to Electronics, such as light, electricity, circuits...you get the point. If you are still in school, I'll explain it to you in an even simpler way. Physics that we study in schools is "mostly" related to Mechanical or Electrical/Electronics Engineering.
Since I liked Physics (the electrical part of it), I decided to go for an Electronics Engineering, rather than a Mechanical Engineering course. It was only towards the end of my second year there, that I realized I was into coding. I wasn't into Electronics anymore, but I loved the course. I had time to build amazing projects, and I did.
What My Learning Was 😄
Meanwhile, my peers in computer science were designing websites and working on databases. I didn't get the chance to explore databases and/or web dev in a lecture, so I went where any kid goes to explore: the internet. And trust me, the internet is a boon to this World. You can learn anything and everything here. While working on my Electronics degree, I started diving into code, first C and C++, the masters of software engineering, and then Python, the new kid in town. 😃
What came to me as a shock was that my Electronics degree was restricting me, from getting a job where I code intensely. And I did want that job, really bad. The logic was flowing out of me, and I didn't want to design circuits anymore. It so happens, that in my country, it was pretty hard to even get a job, if you didn't know how to code. Close save, since I had worked a bit on my skills to learn code.
Why Do I Say Code Is Important? 🤖
Over the years, I worked on personal projects, and kept on learning new languages, because I had understood that code is omnipresent:
- Why do you see a fulfillment robot in a warehouse?
- Why do you see those automated vending machines?
- Why do you see marketing companies targeting the right people these days?
- Why do you see robots serving in restaurants these days?
Coding is the answer to all these questions.
To give you an example, consider the fourth point above. The construction and enhancement part of robotics is mostly automated these days. A few years ago, there were a lot of discussions based on airplane construction being automated, which caused a stir in people's minds that jobs will be lost. Some people lost their jobs, while others didn't.
A Deeper Explanation 👀
Recently, AutoML has been introduced in machine learning. Many people think that AutoML can replace data scientists and machine learning engineers. Let me tell you why that is impossible. Data scientists clean, wrangle, and mine the data, to make sense of it first. Then they do important modifications such as feature engineering and feature selection, which are extremely important as they need a human factor for their analysis. This is where AutoML misses out. It can give good results, but what about the explanations that one needs to give to the clients? And what about the data cleaning process, that takes days at times?
So, you get the point.
Coding is irreplaceable.
Now, I've given you a back story into my life as well. My interest lies in data and front-end. So, data is a sub-field of back-end dev, which implies that I am interested in full-stack.
An electronics engineer is playing with data today. The way I can bring back my love for electronics is to dive into computer vision. And I just might do that someday. :)
The Way Forward For Beginners 👨🎓 👩🎓
Computer Science is a very interesting and vast field, and I'd suggest you take it up and explore it. But, don't do it for the sake of it. It's okay if you want to be a mechanical, or electrical, or biomedical engineer; or a statistician, a product manager, a financial analyst, etc. What I'm trying to tell you, is that eventually, you might code, and there's a big probability hanging around that.
So, while pursuing your course, keep trying out new languages, to understand what interests you, and what keeps your mind fresh and active. Ten years down the line, you want to be working on something that keeps you active, and interested.
This is a personal opinion. Let me know yours as well! 😁
Thank you for reading!
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