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My if/else: Deciding a major . When I entered my first year of college at UCSD, my major was undeclared. I thought I might want to get into Chemistry, Math, or Neuroscience based on the fact that those were the topics I thought I liked. Never in my wildest dreams did I ever think I’d later declare my major as Computer Science, around the time that this picture was taken in Fall of 2010. My dorm floor mate recommended taking an intro to CS class, and it turns out that I didn’t hate it or fail miserably (unlike the intro classes to Chemistry, Math, and Neuroscience that I tried 😵). So I kept going. . The second picture is of my dorm room desk in freshman year, and the third is one of my very first programming projects where we took pictures with a green screen and, with code, photoshopped ourselves into the picture. I didn’t get an A on this project 😅 but it gave me enough confidence to keep me going into my second year doing CS. . It amazes me that decisions like deciding a major seem to happen coincidentally and randomly, yet they set us on completely different life tracks, especially on your first step into something. The first episode of if/else debates about whether to step into Software Engineering as a CS major at a 4 year university, or a coding bootcamp with some experts to hash it out on the pros and cons of each. Link in bio!

A post shared by mayuko (@hellomayuko) on Nov 8, 2019 at 11:53am PST

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My if/else: Choosing a full time role . After 4 years and countless grueling programming assignments and late nights at the labs, it was time for me to choose a full time role to leap into the tech industry. I chose to join @Intuit, after spending my junior year summer interning at their San Diego office. I liked their early career program, and their product and design driven innovation felt really exciting. It also gave me the chance to work either in San Diego, my hometown, or move up to the Bay Area (which I eventually did in 2015). . The second and third picture are of me during one of the new grad events at Intuit (can you find me in the second one?) . Looking back, starting my career at Intuit was transformational for me as it’s where I found my love for product development and discovered iOS. It makes me think that every decision I’ve made has been The Right One, since I learn so much about software development and about myself in the process. In my podcast, if/else, we always hash it out between two choices, but the answer is always it depends (because I kinda think you can’t go wrong with whatever decision you make). Have a listen to the last 6 episodes out now wherever you listen! Link in bio! #ifelsepodcast

A post shared by mayuko (@hellomayuko) on Dec 19, 2019 at 8:52am PST