Since I was young, I thought I would be a musician when I grew up. I had been playing the violin since I was four years old and created my whole identity around music. In high school, I was at the top of my game, playing in advanced orchestras and learning difficult repertoire. However, my teacher told me to pursue something other than music because it would be a hard life where I was always be competing for a job. I was okay with this because I was interested in other things, like biology and mathematics. In college, I took a computer science class just to see what it was about, and I loved it! The patterns, and languages of computer science made sense in my brain, and I also liked that there was a lot of creativity in coding. Catching up to my classmates who already knew how to code was stressful, because I felt like they would think I didnât know anything because I was a girl, not because I didnât have the same level of experience. My confidence grew slowly, and I started to embrace how I was different from my peers. I was a girly-girl who liked to wear dresses and put cute stickers on my laptop. I went to orchestra practice after class and played my violin. I didnât spend my free time hacking or creating coding projects for fun. When I was looking for a job, my personality and interests helped me stand out because I wasnât like everyone else!
So, donât be afraid to show who you are and share who you are with the people around you. Every interest in life, whether it be computer science, music, or something else, gets better when more people with different traits get involved.