Living in a Dream World (+ Free Resources)

In high school, I lived in a digital world.

The exponential growth of computers and the Internet that I witnessed growing up had reached the point where it became part of my daily routine, and I would come home every afternoon and regularly lose myself for hours in cyberspace. Sure, I had friends and interacted with people IRL, but the vast majority of my companions at the time were online, converging upon message boards and chat rooms from around the world. Creating digital art, building websites, writing blogs and articles, screwing around on the net - that was my life. Comparatively little attention was devoted toward school or Dreams of the future, often putting forth effort enough to appease parents and grandparents who rewarded me for decent grades. I wasn't a terrible student - mainly As and Bs with some Cs and the occasional D in foreign language or science - but I never took notes, never studied for tests, and frequently forgot about homework if my fellow students didn't remind me whose turn it was to copy the assignment. I certainly never considered learning as a way to improve myself.

You could hardly call them "Dreams," but there were a few different career paths available to me in this pre-college stage of my life: 1. Computer Science - perhaps an obvious choice, considering that in addition to devoting my own free time to technology, I also took classes such as Computer Literacy, Programming in Java, Computer Application, and AP Computer Science (plus AP Calculus for good measure); 2. Art - that's right, I loved drawing and maintained an art elective throughout high school, including Art and Design, Drawing and Painting, Advanced Drawing and Painting, and AP Studio Drawing; 3. Psychology - I took AP Psychology in senior year and was shocked to discover that I actually enjoyed learning the material. As evidenced by these AP classes I did plan to attend college, but with a sub-1200 SAT score my commitment was a little less than fully realized.

Something clicked when I got to college. I thought, what would happen if I actually tried to succeed? So I got organized, took notes bordering on obsessive, kept track of assignments, attended nearly every lecture, and frequently talked with professors outside of class. I tried to keep an open mind about courses that I would pursue and ended up majoring in Psychology as well as Philosophy, completely avoiding all Computer Science, Math, and Art out of a sheer lack of present interest, and ultimately graduated with honors and a GPA of 3.94. Decisions are a hell of a thing, as I'm learning from Tony Robbins in Awaken the Giant Within.

Between Psychology and Philosophy, I saw the latter as an unemployable life passion, and the former as a potential career with plenty of day-to-day variety involving actually helping others. After graduating 6 years ago, the majority of my professional career in the "real world" has indeed been in the mental health field. I enjoy what I do and I like the people who I work with. In some sense, I'm living my Dream of helping others achieve their Dreams. Having said that, I recognize that in order for there to be a future for me in this field, in order to support my family, I would need to go further. Ideally I would get a doctorate (5-7 years), go through unpaid internships, work my way up to owning my own practice, sacrificing nights and weekends for years or decades to come in order to maintain that practice and give my clients the support they need. Once I commit, that's it; specific skills for a specific field. I can feed and support my family with this career, yes, and I can directly help other human beings. But will I be able to live life WITH my family to the fullest? And is it possible to support my family while I'm on this difficult path before I even reach financial stability? I'm not so sure anymore.

What if I learned a skill that would actually increase my marketability now, instead of having to choose between career and family? Something I could utilize both as a career option and as an implementation for a future business? After reading about the pace of the human race in Sapiens and Future Crimes, I'm more convinced than ever that this "something" could be Computer Science. Exponential technology is rapidly pulling us into the future, into a time where Programming is as basic a discipline as English, Science, and Math.

Most of all, I want to challenge myself again. There's no sense in making excuses about financial instability based on the field I chose if I still have the ability to learn new fields. I want to leverage the methods of learning and success that I've honed over the years - when obtaining a 3.94 GPA, when becoming fluent in Japanese, when losing 22.2 lbs of body fat in under 2 months, when finding an amazing wife, and so on - and apply it to an existing interest in technology to create something useful that will still provide help to human beings. This blog has gone through many iterations depending on my goals: In Search of Quality, Great Egg Adventures in Nihon, A Time for Reflections and Resolutions. I am finally prepared to reveal my next goal and version of this blog: Living in a Dream World, where I will record my journey into learning Computer Science and obtaining certifications and/or a Master's degree.

Do I regret not focusing on this earlier, perhaps in college instead of Psychology and Philosophy? No. At the time I was scratching an itch that I was passionate about as a way of understanding the world. I don't believe in regrets in life if it all contributed to who I am today, and college offered a multitude of experiences related to growth outside of just classes for my major. I followed my passions in mental health and Japanese, and now I'd like to try a different approach: using viable, sustainable work as the foundation where passion is built along the way (a la So Good They Can't Ignore You). There's no reason I can't return to the mental health field later on down the road, and that's what's so tempting for me about learning CS - it seems to be the most rewarding option with the least time investment, where I don't have to choose the One Path that I'll be stuck with for the rest of my life.

More notes are to come, and I'm particularly excited to share details on HOW I plan to learn Computer Science, which I will prepare for over the next 2 weeks. For now, I'll leave you with some resources that I've gathered from friends and around the web. I haven't figured out exactly how I'm going to use them all, but suffice to say I'm looking at them as decent starting points.

(SEE UPDATED LIST HERE)