As I’m waiting for Fringe to buffer, I thought I’d put in a little plug about my reworked college plan and revelations of last week. As you may know, I have been in the Electrical Engineering program at UTD for a few semesters now, and as I move further and further into the hardware specific classes I realize this is not the place I should be. Something inside me has a sour feeling since the start of this semester, and it took me a month to figure out what it means.
I am in the wrong major.
Hardcore prayer and meditations soon began last week, and I realized that I love computer development and working on software projects. Since High School I enjoyed coding, but saw that hardware would pay more out of the starting gates of life. So, I quickly took on a full Electrical Engineering load, but I finally saw this is not the place God wants me. He definitely used these EE classes to show me that this is not what I want to do forever, and the Maxim internship two summers ago also showed me that designing and testing chips in a plant (my most probable job out of college) was not that enjoyable.
But on the flip-side, I do not want to be developing code for the rest of my life. This is why a Computer Science degree was such a turnoff to me in high school. I didn’t want to get stuck with the label of “programmer” for the rest of my career. But God stepped in big time this past week. I ran into a friend from high school, who I had advanced CS with. We exchanged what had happened in our lives this past year, then started to talk about our majors. I told him that I wasn’t really happy with my EE degree plan anymore, and then he began to tell me about this “Software Engineering” degree that I had never heard of before. Apparently, it’s like a Computer Science degree, but based around Engineering ideals and project planning. I thought it was too good to be true at first, so I pressed further about the types of classes he was taking. With summer classes, he was already headed to 3 and 4 level courses and they were exactly what I wanted to study. So all last week I researched software engineering, future careers, starting salaries; the works. I felt like I was a high school Junior again, researching colleges and careers. I found out that a Software Engineering degree can get me, basically, any job that a CS degree could, plus Engineering jobs that involve coding or management (based on experience). After talking with my advisor, I changed my major to SE. Plus, with the addition of one more class I can pick up a minor in CS. God really rocked my boat this past week, and now I’m on fire for school again. I’m dropping a class tomorrow that I don’t need so that will ease my workload for the school week.
And of course, tonight at Shift was especially astounding, because Rijken and David V really pressed connecting with God, and we almost skipped the whole practice to just dwell in His presence. I just knelt there rejoicing in this confidence that He helped me find, and listened to His voice confirming the next piece of the plan for my life. I cast away a lot of worries tonight, and I am much closer to feeling His peace that I need to remain sane.
I’m so excited to carry out this college degree, and can’t wait to start working toward His glory. I pray that you will keep your ears open for His words, and never allow yourself to be boxed in by your plans. I was so concrete in my EE decision, but He chose otherwise.
May you stay blessed,
Goodnight,
-Dindak
P.S.- If you want to be truly challenged in the way you live your life and how you follow God’s word, read any of the prophets (Isaiah to Malachi). I’m going through the Message translation of them right now, and it’s phenomenal.
