Computer Programming. I grew up in the C64/Apple II age when computers were cool and all, but still kinda toys. "Computer Programmer" was a job title, but not

Computer Programming. I grew up in the C64/Apple II age when computers were cool and all, but still kinda toys. "Computer Programmer" was a job title, but not a very good one. Certainly not a well paid profession or one with any hope of advancement or prestige. The best you could hope for was a job in the basement at some Fortune 500 company or maybe scraping by at one of the little companies making video games or that "MicroSoft" place in Bellevue where they made "Mouse" and a few other things for PC clones. So despite spending most of my youth getting really good at programming, it never occurred to me, even for a second, to study it at University or try to turn it into a career. The smart move for a smart guy was Engineering, so I'm officially a Mechanical Engineer by trade. But then 1995 happened and suddenly Hello World + Angle Brackets was all the skill set you needed to name your price in the DotCom world. Suddenly all those years of building games where you pilot a little asterisk around the screen with a joystick shooting lower-case o's at things changed from being "waste of time" to "most valuable skill in the world", so I pivoted quick. I never would have believed it had you told me. But I'm certainly glad it happened.