A Programmer’s Journey – Part 1
Early Days
In this series, I will share my story before I forget about them. Hopefully other than to serve as my memory aide, someone, somewhere will be able to relate to my story and learn a thing or two.
I grew up near rice fields at our backyard. My grandfather always take me with him to our small farm land several kilometers away from our house riding at the back of a carabao. We are not rich, in fact, our family is poor. My mother always sell something: mangoes, carabao milk other goods to support us. I oftentimes accompany her and one time I asked her why are doing this. Couldn’t you be a teacher or something? I was a child. I remember we always travel to our relatives to seek assistance. Me and my only sister transferred to different schools a couple of times. We finally settled to my hometown which is near an agricultural college.
Early Fascination in Tech
Like a regular kid back then, I like watching TV mostly from our neighbors. I was fascinated by people who are using computers, electronics and hacking in the movies and tv shows. I’m not sure how we got it but I somehow was able to read a novel about detective work or something. I barely remember it. I mentioned it because I think it affected my curiosity to computers even more.
When I was 11 years old, there was this short weekend electronic course. I enrolled and I was the youngest student. We have to pay around $1 for every session. We build flip flops using LED (Light Emitting Diode), learned how to solder, read resistor color coding and more. There was this electronic repair shop that I was able to join as a trainee. That helped me to complete my FM stereo radio and other projects. But I almost stopped studying at school because I was made to believe that it’s enough to have a skill like that to make a living. Good thing I was able to come back after a couple months and graduate elementary school.
College and computers
Fast forward to college, I was able to get in because of academic scholarship. The school is very new, I took the qualification test and almost failed to be included. My name was mistakenly misplaced. I protested because I knew that I made it somehow. They look for my paper and was surprised that I was able to qualify for “Class A” scholarship. That is I’m going to pay only the miscellaneous fees and I even have monthly transportation allowance. Without this, I’m never gonna make it in college.
I took up BS in Computer Engineering and Hardware Technology. My first choice is Electronics and Communication Engineering because I saw it on TV when it was so early and the engineers are being shown on TV. Unfortunately, this is not available in my school. But I never regret it. I found out that I was made for this because of my passion in computers and programming. That and a Fortran book that my mother gave me made my resolve to pursue my programming passion. Who in their teens read a Fortran book? This was circa 1996.
To be continued…
