Archive note · 13 October 2026: This article preserves my education and career perspective from 2020. Its assessments reflect that period; it has not been updated into a guide to today’s education or job market.
What's Really Going On Inside?
I want to start this post with AlexNet, the first efficient CNN with 5 convolutional layers, and with a line from the movie Inception, which Google also references in its own CNN paper (Going deeper with convolutions):
This is not enough.
We have to go deeper.
How Did My Story Begin?
In high school, when I was only 14 or 15, like every hardworking student who was considered successful and had goals, I of course dreamed of being somewhere other than where I am now.
But back then, I didn't yet have the motivation and awareness I have now about where I was and where I wanted to go.
As a result, getting into Medicine, my goal and my dream since I was very young, was something I couldn't even dream of, let alone come close to, when I looked at my YGS/LYS scores.
My score wasn't bad, but it wasn't going to get me into Medicine.
Retaking the exam the following year was one of my options, and I think that's also why I didn't make it.
At first I liked the idea of retaking the exam, but then I changed my mind. I also wanted to start university. So I started researching and asked myself: which department could I choose so that I'd love the profession and keep working for it, even if I had to make sacrifices?
In other words, which department or profession would keep pulling me forward toward a goal?
A long period of research and thinking began…
Why Did I Choose Computer Engineering?
After the exam results were announced on July 18, I spent almost every single day trying to figure out which department to go to.
What would I do?
Where would I go?
What would make me happy?
Which department would keep me improving instead of standing still?
At the time, Artificial Intelligence was widely discussed and researched in academia and heavily used in industry, but it wasn't yet a big topic in Turkey.
Once Medicine and Dentistry were off the table, the only field I could think of was engineering.
I researched engineering departments every day.
What does the field cover, what does its future look like, what would I need to learn in this degree, what is being done in this field around the world? Is it a field where everything has already been done, or one where a lot has been done but there's still a lot left to do? Does it involve physics? 🙂
These questions pointed me straight to a single department: computer engineering, of course. I filled in my preferences right away, and all 24 of them were computer engineering.
I'd been using a computer since I was 4, I could touch-type with ten fingers, at 90 words per minute. If I wasn't going to be a computer engineer, who would?
Or so I thought…
When I first started the program, I was very, very curious about the field. I was even trying to learn the basics from whatever sources I could find.
Before school started, I had studied algorithm flowcharts and their symbols.
(Definitely don't do this.)
In my first Algorithms and Programming class, I asked:
Professor, could you recommend a resource for us to learn from?
Here is his answer, exactly as it happened:
- The lesson was over, the professor had shut down his computer, the plugs were pulled and the projector's VGA cable was out. Without a second thought, he plugged everything back in, turned on the computer and opened the browser. He started typing in the address bar:
w w w . g o o g l e . c o m
I said to myself: yes, welcome to freshman year. Everyone is going to make fun of you like this, you'd better get used to it.
I really thought it was a joke.
The man is making fun of us, I thought, telling me to use Google as if we didn't know it. Never heard of this site in my life, did it just launch?
Of course, after almost four full years since that first Algorithms and Programming class, thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands of Google searches, hundreds of assignments, hundreds of personal toy projects and one professional startup project, I realized he wasn't joking.
A programmer, developer, software developer, junior, senior, etc. is not the person who memorizes everything and builds everything from scratch (you will never need to reinvent the wheel), but the person who improves on existing methods and can use and implement (apply/adapt) them in the most accurate and efficient way.
Stackoverflow, Github, Kaggle, Tutorial, How can i do…
The words above and their variations sum up four years of my Google searches and browsing history. If you want to step into the software world and learn, you also need to learn how to figure out what to do and how to learn it. In other words, you have to learn how to research.
What You'll Go Through and Get Used To as a Developer/Programmer
If you're a programmer: being at the start of the road, being a student, or typing your very first code into a compiler/IDE doesn't change that. If you want to keep going and learning on this path, I think you can already call yourself a programmer/developer.
Along the way, only your experience and your title change. At the start, your title is Junior Developer.
Later, depending on your level and experience, you get titles like Middle, Senior and Lead. Of course, these are just names; depending on the field you work in, you can have different ones (Web/Application/Database Programmer/Developer, etc.).
So What Will You Run Into If You Work in This Field?
I can easily say you'll reach the point of hating silly requests like “open an internet cafe” or “format my PC.”
“A programmer is not a PC repairman.”
— Kushagra Sharma
It is wrong to even assume that a programmer is a PC repairman. A programmer knows how the computer works on the inside (CPU, Assembly, microprocessor design and programming). We also care about algorithms and design principles rather than PC hardware.
Of course, when people ask me for the best photo editing app for Android, or whether an SSD is compatible with their laptop, I'm supposed to have the answer. Otherwise, why would I even be in this field?
Nightgeek, or simply put: why do we stay up all night?
“Programmers don’t talk because they must not be interrupted… Being in tune with other people can mean stopping a train of thought. Stopping means errors. You must not get off the train.”
— Ellen Ullman
Because when we build anything, we need a calm, quiet environment. We need it to get what we're coding done efficiently.
Especially when someone is watching me or suddenly bursts into the room, I lose all my concentration and forget the whole roadmap in my head and everything I was about to do.
That's why coding while everyone else is asleep, when no one can disturb me, has been a habit I've never been able to break since I wrote my first line of code.
So you write 2 lines of code and act like you saved the world. I could do what you do. Of course you could… Go ahead, then?
“Programming is thinking, not writing.”
— Casey Patton
Programming relies entirely on imagination and a logical approach to solving a problem. Programming is an art you can do while sleeping, strolling, looking out the window, or doing anything else, as long as you have enough time to relax and imagine. If you can think logically, then you are a programmer.
Programming gives you a new way of thinking.
“Whether you want to uncover the secrets of the universe, or you just want to pursue a career in the 21st century, basic computer programming is an essential skill to learn.”
— Stephen Hawking
Why do programmers drink so much coffee? Why do we make a fetish of it?
Programmers sometimes do stupid things. The stupidest thing we do is work really long hours. Caffeine helps us stay awake for those long hours, at least in theory, so to us it's a very useful drug.
And we love caffeine. Caffeine is a stimulant and creates more chaotic connections in the brain that encourage creativity.
It makes us smarter and more energetic. I'm not saying our next IQ test will jump to 200, of course, but it has been scientifically shown that once caffeine reaches the brain through the bloodstream, it blocks an inhibitory neurotransmitter called adenosine. When this happens, there is room for neurotransmitters like dopamine and norepinephrine to increase. This increases the firing of neurons. Caffeine improves many brain functions, including mood, cognitive function, concentration, reaction time and energy.
Also, getting up for coffee (walking down the hall, making it and coming back) only takes a few minutes, but that short break clears our head of the problem.
And yes, we all think we're some kind of converter. We think we're machines that turn coffee into code, and we like that. We like drinking the coffee, and we like believing the idea, too.
Because we care about the computer world, we don't care about the real world.
Seriously, please stop bothering us. Just stop. We don't care; I really don't care how proud you are of knowing about politics, economics or other real-world stuff. We love living in the virtual world, and we love abstract things.
We really don't care whether you know nothing about computer science, or whether you're impressed when we brag about computers.
Likewise, we're not impressed by bloody politics, silly ranks and positions, or events like these.
The people and things that impress us are the programmers, startups and entrepreneurs you call antisocial or crazy: the ones who never leave their computers, who try to make your world a better place and who achieve what has never been done, the impossible.
And yes, we don't care about your silly ideas about artificial intelligence.
And Finally, the Truth
Programming is much harder than it looks. It's not just about writing a program that checks whether a number is even or odd; it's also about building real-world applications and software. Sometimes when you say “I'm a programmer,” people start assuming you're a game developer and so on. Game development is not a joke; it's a team effort (graphic designers, programmers, testers, etc.). It sounds easy, but creating even the simplest game is really hard.
But just as nothing is impossible, this isn't impossible either. Most people are scared of learning how to program. But as with everything else, the more you practice and repeat it, the easier it gets.
Thank you for reading this far. Feel free to reach out about anything you want to ask about programming and software.
You'll see that I'm happy to help.
You can always contact me.
