God has not made a mistake with you

Written to someone close to me:

___ mentioned how things are going (or not going?) with plans to join the nursing program. Specifically, she mentioned that it’s recommended to have at least 6 months work or volunteer experience to apply. I’ll come back to some thoughts I have on that.

I was just thinking about the experiences I’ve had as I’ve gone through undergraduate school, applied to grad schools, and tried to find jobs over the last several years. And I think I’ve suffered constantly from doubt and imposter syndrome from the very beginning right up to now. My default assumption, when thinking about the “competition” is that I’m the odd one out.

This has always made me extremely intimidated by putting myself out there and pursuing things that I often thought, at the time, I had no business pursuing. I remember considering going into computer science as an undergrad (something that, in retrospect, I think would have been an excellent fit for me). There are a number of reasons I decided not to do this. But, I certainly remember feeling like I had no business pursuing it. I assumed that nearly all the students in the program likely had been programming their whole lives.

I specifically remember a time when I was in an introductory programming CS class as an undergrad and having to ask a TA for help with a problem I was running into. He made some snide comment about how it was because Windows (the operating system I was using) was (not “had”, but “was”, itself) a virus. It was some kind of nerdy programmer joke, but I honestly couldn’t tell if he was making fun of me, taking a shot at Windows, or something else. I just gave a half smile/laughy thing and waited for him to give a serious answer to my question. I felt like an outsider, because I didn’t understand his programmer humor.

I remember when I first considered making the switch to engineering from Neuroscience. It’s very possible I would have considered going into engineering my first year as an undergrad, but I had it fixed in my mind that I had done poorly in physics in high school and that this meant I couldn’t possibly be good at engineering. Again, it was major imposter syndrome. In my mind, there were engineers who were born and raised engineers… and then there was me. And I was different. And I couldn’t possibly be an engineer, because I hadn’t been raised an engineer. My dad wasn’t an engineer. And I hadn’t dreamed of becoming an engineer since childhood.

So, yeah, I did end up working up the confidence to go into an engineering program. But, only after a whole lot of deliberating about which engineering discipline to go into. Because, what you find in engineering, at least based on my experience, is that there is an unspoken “ranking” of difficulty between the engineering disciplines. And it goes something like this. Manufacturing engineering is the “easiest”. Next comes civil engineering. Then, there’s mechanical engineering, and maybe electrical engineering is close to it. Then, there’s the mother of all engineering, the most difficult one… CHEMICAL ENGINEERING (echo, echo, echo, ….).

And there was certainly no way I could do something as difficult as chemical engineering, even though it was probably the one I was most interested in (and in retrospect, it was probably the best fit for my ultimate career path). So, for that reason, I shied away from chemical engineering and chose mechanical engineering. This ended up being better at the time anyway, because I needed an engineering program that offered plenty of spring/summer classes, otherwise it would have taken me too long to get through the program. By this time, I had already changed my major from pre-med, to open major, to family science, to microbiology, and to neuroscience. So, I was running out of time in school.

When I applied to graduate schools, again I was convinced that I was competing against the greatest geniuses of our time to get into a good bioengineering program. So, I studied like crazy for the GRE and ended up doing really well on it. So, by the time I applied to schools, I was finally feeling pretty good about myself.

But then, grad school came and went. After 6 years of being in a PhD program, I didn’t have much to show for myself in terms of research and my advisor announced he was leaving the University…. So, after all that time I put into a PhD program, I had to hurry and finish up a master’s thesis and call it quits.

By this time, I had been in school from 19__ to 20__, minus 2 years for a mission, and I felt utterly unqualified to get a job. I’d never had any work experience in a related field. I had worked campus jobs as an undergraduate, and of course as a graduate student, I had no work experience. I hadn’t done any internships. I was 33 years old and I felt useless. Of the four jobs I’ve had since this time (a research associate job in the __ bioengineering department, my ___ job, ___, and now ___), three of them (all but ___) have felt like a huge stretch for me and I suffered a lot from imposter syndrome. But, those were the ones in which I grew a ton.

In the research associate job (where I started Feb 20__), I was essentially a programmer. But, I hadn’t had any formal training and education in computer science. Over the course of undergraduate and graduate school, I had picked up a lot of programming. And for this job, it ended up being enough to at least get my foot in the door (I was also getting paid miserably, so maybe they were just looking for anyone with at least some programming experience). But, there was still a massive amount of learning I did as a programmer (and it was hugely uncomfortable at times). And that was instrumental in getting the ___ job.

At ___, I was originally hired (in Aug 20__) with the idea that I would be contributing as a C++ software developer. By the end of 6 months, they had decided not to have me do that. I don’t think it was necessarily a lack of ability on my part, but there were various reasons. So, for about 5 years of this job, I didn’t do much or any programming as part of my job. But, I did a lot on my own from 20__ to maybe 20__.

During this time, there was a lot of stuff I wanted to read and learn about, but I didn’t have the time to do it. So, I started writing programs to scrape web content and convert the text to MP3 to listen to in the car to and from work. I went through various iterations of this in different programming languages. By 20__, there were some internal software tools that someone else at ___ had developed for license support and I started to take over the maintenance and continued development of these tools.

This solidified some of my previous programming experience in a couple of languages and also started to expose me to SQL and using databases. Then, in 20__, when I started to realize that I was growing stagnant and becoming an obsolete fossil at ___, I started looking into data science. I started doing a lot of online self-paced courses in data science and got some exposure to it.

At this time, nothing short of being bored to tears in my current job and my conviction that if I stayed any longer I would be stuck there for life could have given me sufficient courage and motivation to jump ship and try my hand at something for which I thought the opportunity had long since passed. This was 20__ and I was 43 years old.

My biggest fear at this time was that I was a grandpa in the industry and that the people in these types of jobs would be 10-15 years younger than me with computer science degrees, a life-long passion for all things data and computing, and would have been working for some years already in the industry. I didn’t have, on my resume, what I thought were the must-haves for the industry.

So, I dug up everything I could and presented myself as someone with broad experience across disciplines, who had taken the initiative to acquire, on my own, the specific skill sets needed for the job: I mentioned the personal projects (the web scraping stuff), the online courses in data science, and the various programming projects I had worked on in graduate school and at ___. I didn’t have a computer science degree. I had not a single official data scientist or software developer position to my name that I could put on my resume. But, what I was able to scrape together from less formal training and experience ended up being enough.

When I applied at ___, the whole process repeated again. I was applying as a software engineer. I still had no computer science degree. I still had no previous software engineer title/role that I could put on my resume. At least I was able to put down that I had been a data scientist for about a year and a half at ___. But, I was now 45 years old and felt like a little child compared to my peers (and those much younger, for that matter).

The friend who helped me get the job couldn’t have been older than his early 30s and he was coaching me on what I would need to do in the interview process. The most intimidating thing was that I would need to do an interactive programming exercise with an interviewer watching. This is just standard for any software engineer job and I had never done one in my life. Fortunately, I was able to prep for that and I did fine. … [In] the rest of the interview process, I was … able to focus a lot on the domain-specific knowledge and experience I had in the biomedical sciences, and specifically with electronic health records (at ___).

Anyway, all that to say that I have not followed a conventional path at any point in my education or career. And I have been constantly hounded by self-doubt, imposter syndrome, and the conviction that I have always been the odd one out and far behind my peers. Every step of the way, I have had to scrounge up anything I could from my past experiences and each time I have crafted a story about myself. And it was almost always an unconventional story.

But, those kinds of things can end up being your greatest assets that cause you to stand out in a sea of clones who have checked all the boxes and done all the standard things expected to go into the field they’re pursuing. So yeah, maybe the majority of your peers applying to the nursing program will be able to go on and on about all their volunteer experience in the healthcare industry and about their life-long dream of becoming the next Florence Nightingale. I don’t think this will be the case. But, even if it is, don’t count yourself out.

God has not made a mistake with you. I believe there is more in your past experiences than you realize that makes you a great candidate for the nursing program. Maybe nursing isn’t necessarily going to be your path. But, if it’s your desire to try your hand at getting into the program, then maybe ask God to open your eyes to what he has already done with you. You may be surprised to find that the experiences and desires you’ve had can be woven together into a perfectly original, unique, and stand-out picture of someone who would be amazing in the nursing program, even if she can’t say she’s always dreamed of being the next Florence Nightingale.

Trust me that there are intangibles, things that can’t necessarily be concretely put into a bullet point list on a resume, that can make you stand out. And while they can’t be put into a bullet point list, they’ll still come through loud and clear in application essays, in the things you’ve tried, and in the way you talk about your experiences. What most of the world is looking for is desire, interest, passion, initiative, and drive.

Coming back to the volunteer experience thing, I’d just start by googling things in the ___ area. I’m sure there are dozens of places in the area that could offer some great opportunities. In the little bit of searching that … I have done, I can tell you that even I was getting excited. I was almost envious. You have so much opportunity before you. And like every job that I’ve ever had, overcoming the inertia and the initial struggles and setbacks and dead-ends will likely offer you the most valuable learning experiences.

I know it can seem daunting and intimidating, and I know that the “sorry but no”s can be discouraging, but I would start with a list of phone numbers for the front desk, or HR, at a number of places and just call them. Be honest and vulnerable. No one is going to be mean to a ___ pre-nursing undergrad. Remember, there is no set script. You don’t have to first check with anyone to ask the right way to call places and start asking questions. Like on your mission, approaching someone in the streets or at their doorstep, start with a basic idea of what you’re going to say, but keep it entirely open-ended. And then let God guide the rest.

Again, there is no set script. No set questions. No right or wrong way to do this. Be honest and vulnerable. Put yourself out there. Expect “sorry but no”s, but also expect “well, we don’t have any opportunities right now, but have you tried x, y, or z”? Where it fits, ask for ideas. Ask people for leads. And as you go through this process, I expect that your “story” and the specific details of your interests are going to come into clearer and clearer focus. Keep a record of all your attempts in your journal. Expect and look forward to discoveries, great advice and suggestions as you talk to people.

Don’t undervalue the process itself. It’s not just the actual job or volunteer experience that’s valuable. It’s the journey you took while trying to get that experience. It’s the conversations you had, the friends and acquaintances you made, the advice you got from strangers over the phone, it’s the growing clarity you gained through the process as you made calls, talked to people, researched different places, explored different options, and recorded all of this in journals and notebooks.

And if, by March, it still feels like you don’t have enough concrete bullet point items of experience to put down on a resume or application, make sure the people reviewing your application see someone who is passionate, willing to be vulnerable, willing to put themselves out there, and who has taken initiative. Make sure they see someone who is on a trajectory that will lead to eventual success, someone that they would love to have in their program.

…I believe in you. And God has not made a mistake with you. Again, ask him to open your eyes to how there has been nothing wasted in your life’s experiences. Ask him to show you how it can be woven into a picture of someone like I just described in the paragraph above.