Why I made the switch from Medicine to Tech

While in college, I majored in biological sciences as I was convinced I would have a career in medicine. I read tons of journals in my free time, watched videos and took part in extracurriculars that involved the sciences. I also really enjoyed most of my classes while many of my peers seemed mildly interested in their major. I was hungry to learn more, it almost seemed like I was destined for this field, until I started working in it. I spent almost six years working in different subsections of the field, from different types of patient care to research laboratory work and just about everything in between, but I lost more and more interest in the field each time I tried a new position. Eventually, I came to the realization that I needed to go somewhere else. I kept my job at a pharmacy while researching and discussing different options with people that had careers in different fields. This long process led me to the tech industry because…

1. Broadness — The thing with medicine is, once you are certified and employed at a certain position, it seems as if you’re stuck there. There are subspecialties, management opportunities, and even options such as a PA where you can decide to transfer from one speciality to another however, this is nothing compared to tech. For example, you can transfer from frontend engineer to ML engineer or from a developer at a bank to a PM at an e-commerce company relatively easily compared to other careers. This was a huge selling point for me as you have the opportunity to explore and later buckle down on what you’re interested in.
2. Impact — one of the reasons why I was interested in medicine was the impact you could have on people. After all, you could save someone’s life. I guess I never considered the impact people in the tech industry can make. Again, there are many possibilities. You could be working at a huge tech company that brings tremendous value to people’s lives, you could build a website for a local business owner that ends up bringing them new customers, you could help develop software that reduces safety risks etc. While it may not always be “life saving” it certainly can be “life improving”
3. Location — As long as you have good wifi and are close to the same time zone as the rest of your team, it seems as if you could do your job from anywhere whether it’s at an office, at the park etc. While I’m not sure how practical this is for every role, there seems to be a growing acceptance for remote work in technology. Working in the same exact space every day could become monotonous, being able to work at a place where you know you could produce the best work is a huge plus.
4. Lifelong learning — This was something very important to me as I wouldn’t want to work in a stagnant field. You will be a lifelong learner in the health and science fields as new information is always coming out, however, a misconception I had was that tech was NOT like this. I’m not sure why I thought this, but I was dead wrong. Technology is rapidly growing and things are always changing whether it be new languages or frameworks, there is ALWAYS something to learn.

The mistake I made was rushing into medicine after liking a couple of my classes. I was so dead-set on on something without considering much and without considering other options.The interest I had in medicine is similar to the interest I now have in tech being that there is so much to learn and so many problems to solve, the only difference is that I have put more thought towards my decision to go into tech and as a result, I am very satisfied with the choice I made.

Contact me on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mihir-bommakanti/