Sometimes the reason you start something isn’t the reason you continue.
I hated Computer Science
I didn’t always want to be a computer scientist. For years, I hated Computer Science.
It wasn’t because I was incapable. It was because I had never felt drawn to it. It felt cold, abstract, and distant. I was just trying to survive classes, pass exams, and keep moving.
Then I met her.
She was a techie. A topper. I was struggling in the back. I wasn’t good at it, and I didn’t care—until I cared about staying beside her.
That was the first crack in the wall.
When someone you admire is in the room, suddenly the things you ignored start feeling important. Being around her made me want to become someone who was worth matching. Someone who could keep up. Someone who could grow.
The First Step
Our coaching teacher scheduled an exam on sequential circuits.
I didn’t understand any of it. But she was preparing for it.
I studied because she made me want to try. Not because I loved CS. Just because being near someone who matters to you makes you want to improve.
We both scored almost full marks.
For me, that meant something: Maybe I can actually do this.
The Progression
After that came networking. Then C++. Then programming.
Somewhere along the way, the reason changed:
- First, I studied to stay beside her
- Then, to prove something to myself
- Finally, because I genuinely loved understanding how things worked
Sequential circuits → networking → C++ → software architecture → building reliable systems → the way I see everything.
I learned that something complicated can become understandable if you stay with it long enough. That shaped everything.
There were nights I stayed up with a blank notebook, trying to understand one concept after another. The frustration was real. The confusion was real. But somewhere in that struggle, a quiet transformation started happening. I stopped studying only because she was there. I started studying because I wanted to understand the world more deeply.
And perhaps that is the most beautiful part: she didn’t just push me into a field. She made me fall in love with the process of learning itself.
She Changed More Than My Career
Her influence wasn’t just about Computer Science. She made me think differently about ambition, studying, building a career, and becoming capable. She pushed me to believe I could become someone very different.
She wasn’t just someone I admired. She became the kind of person who changed the direction of my life without even trying.
Her presence made me want to improve.
Her discipline became something I admired.
Her ambition became something I wanted to match.
She showed me that excellence isn’t only a talent you possess—it’s a habit you build, a standard you keep, and a life you choose. Watching her made me want to become more serious about my own future, not because I was chasing her, but because I wanted to grow into someone worthy of my own dreams.
The Person Behind the Engineer
When people see my work, they see systems. Code. Architecture.
But there was a time when none of that existed. Just a backbencher who hated CS and a person who loved technology.
I started learning because I wanted to stay beside her.
I continued because I discovered that I could.
And eventually, I fell in love with the world I once wanted nothing to do with.
Now, when I look back, I realize something simple and deeply human:
I didn’t become interested in Computer Science because it was easy. I became interested because someone I cared about made me feel that growth was possible.
That is the kind of influence that changes a life.
It doesn’t always arrive as a grand speech or a dramatic moment. Sometimes it arrives quietly, in the way someone makes you want to be more disciplined, more curious, and more alive.
She was simply the person who made me take the first step.
And that first step changed everything.
Life Is Beyond Binary
I think in systems. Inputs and outputs. True and false. Binary. But she taught me something Computer Science never could:
Life isn’t binary.
It isn’t just logic and equations. It isn’t just talent or hard work. Sometimes it is the feeling of being changed by someone who sees more in you than you can see in yourself.
Love → motivation → curiosity → obsession → career
That chain did not start in a classroom. It started in a moment of wanting to become better, simply because someone mattered to me.
Sometimes a person changes your trajectory without you realizing it.
For me, she was:
- The first reason I opened a Computer Science book
- The reason I kept going when it was hard
- The person who made me believe I could become more than I was
- One of the people behind who I’m becoming
And even now, when I build, learn, and create, I feel the shape of that beginning in the quietest parts of my work.
Life is beyond binary.
And maybe that is the most beautiful truth of all: sometimes the person who changes your life is not the one teaching you a subject.
Sometimes, they are the one teaching you how to become yourself.