Sometimes I feel like I’m late to this computer programming thing. There are people who have been doing it since they were little, like five years old. What was I doing when I was five? I was watching cartoons and living a carefree life (save from all the crying, whining, and complaining about whatever little Daniel “cared” about). I didn’t care about computers; I didn’t know how they worked, let alone that they could be programmed. I didn’t even know how to type on a keyboard.

I’ve essentially started when I was 17¹. Compared to other people, I started “late.” There’s this guy in high school who has already worked on great projects like the Eclipse IDE. There’s a Berkeley student whose already written so much on the web, and I assume he’s great at what he does.

But at the same time, I’m fortunate that I’m starting “early.” That is, starting my major classes freshman year and “knowing what I’m doing” with my life. Meeting people in my major classes who are older than I am tells me that I’m lucky to be where I’m at right now. I haven’t had to switch from a different major and basically start all over.

And I’m lucky that I’m really interested in this field. I’ve probably read thousands of pages from books related to computer science, including textbooks, library books, novels, and the like. And if I count the hundreds of articles that are found online (yay for content consumption ad infinitum), my brain is constantly being fed computer-related ideas.

I’m told it’s ‘highly likely” that a college student changes his/her major at least once before graduation. I feel confident that I’ll stick with this major until graduation, though. Hopefully I’m an outlier in that statistic. If not, then I’ll definitely be late to the game.