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I grew up in a remote rural area of a third world country. My mother & father taught me to read. And I developed interest in reading books at the age of 6 or 7.
by tegeek 12y ago
I grew up in a remote rural area of a third world country. My mother & father taught me to read. And I developed interest in reading books at the age of 6 or 7.
When I was 9 or 10 years old, someone (may be my cousin or my fathers' uncle) gave me a book on simple electronics (it was in my native language). That was the first time I read about P-Type & N-Type materials and some other physics. It was so fascinated to me that I used to read it all the time to understand. The book also included about very simple digital logic design and concepts like NAND Gate etc.
I didn't understood at all what it is all about. But It developed my interest in Physics and Electronics.
By the age of 13 or 14 I learned myself about soldering, creating very simple chips and some LEDs on-off work. I never learned any math or could develop any mental model about true electronics but all that work created an infinite desire to know about the nature of "materials" & physics behind everything.
My parents put me in school which was 12 KM from my village, I used to bike every day 24 KM two way with some other friends no matter if it was summer with 43 degrees or winter with -2 degrees. And I was just 9 years old young kid. I started skipping school and start searching more books like that great Electronics books. I bought many but couldn't understand the foundations at all.
That same book had chapters how you can create a sequence of LEDs which keep going on & off one after other and make some interesting visual. I opened every electronic device at home and tried to understand its chips but couldn't get at all what is going on.
None of my friends studies beyond class 8 but I kept going. I started studying physics at the age of 15 at school but it was all so bookish and memorisation that I never liked school at all.
But I studied Physics, Biology & Chemistry myself and enjoyed every single moment of that time. That was the only time I studied Sciences and developed an intuition about the scientific world.
My parents took loan and sent me to a bigger city for my Bachelors degree. But the education was so artificial that I couldn't learn anything more at all. Every single book was in English (which is not my native or national language) I feel so empty & everything useless. At the same time my parents were sending me more money than they could afford.
I went into depression & at some point in my Bachelors' degree I found out about Internet & "Software".
I started learning about Web Site development. I learned HTML, Adobe Dreamweaver & Fireworks. Then I learned a bit of C++ & C#. (I remember I started learning about C# in April 2002).
I got a job as a programmer in an off-shore office of a USA company. I then saved some money and escaped from that country and came to Sweden because of free education.
I studied Computer Science & developed an intense love with Mathematics (even though I'm not good in maths) & Programming Languages. Now I'm working as a Software Engineer but I have deep love with Electronics & Physics. And that all goes back to the days when I was reading that simple electronics book.
- jacquesm 12y agoThat's a beautiful story!
- throwaway1979 12y agoThanks for sharing. I didn't discover electronics until I was much older. I did, however, discover a passion for software at a young age and that has been one of my true loves. In software, I have deep interest and am decent at it. I can't say that for my electronics pursuits. I've been at it as a hobbyist for a few years now and am probably equivalent to someone 6 months into a Bachelors program. In the past, I tried to justify my electronics activities as something productive but a few weeks ago I had a minor Eureka - I just accepted I love electronics for the happiness that it gives me. I don't really care to invent something new or be productive with it.