This is a question I’ve gotten asked a lot in my quest to change careers. If you’ve ever worked in education, especially as a teacher, you no doubt already have some ideas about what my answer will be.  If you haven’t, here’s the explanation:

First, I decided I needed to leave teaching.  I was looking for something that involved less direct “customer contact”, was more financially viable for a single person in Seattle, and was related to tech (a growing field with endless things to learn about).  I wasn’t sure if I wanted to go into instructional design, engineering, project management, or technical writing, so I took some time to explore.

After interviewing career advisors, multiple tech-related departments at UW, taking informal Web Design courses, and talking to my friends in various careers, I decided to take the intro CSE courses at UW (starting with Java) while continuing to teach.  Not only did I pass said course, I found it wonderfully challenging and relevant. I took another, this time in web programming, and I loved it. I felt powerful. I felt like I actually accomplished something. I felt like I was learning and enjoying working with others. Programming is about language just as much as teaching ESL. Syntax, semantics, vocabulary, grammar. They are all related. I’m just happy I didn’t wait any longer than I did to make the switch.