Aarifa Gowani

My journey to find computer science was not quite typical. I entered college with a mindset of becoming a pediatric dentist and majored in Child Learning and Development. After my graduation, I started studying for the DAT exam. After spending numerous hours studying for the DAT exam and volunteering at a dental office, I realized this is not for me. While I enjoyed thinking logically, I wanted to use that logic to invent and build solutions rather than use tools made by others. During the pandemic, I heard my brother talking about all the cool companies and projects he worked on as a Software Engineering major, and I was awestruck. I was inspired by him and decided to take courses from the University of Michigan on HTML, CSS, and JavaScript and discovered my passion for programming. But, let's be real, those classes were tough, especially for someone like me, who was coming from a psychology and dental background. After investing hours in a difficult program, when I was finally able to use my knowledge and work on various projects and develop websites, it was so satisfying! My dedication and hard work paid off, and that motivated me to keep going.

I learned as I went, and developing various websites proved to be such a rewarding experience that I decided to pursue a second Bachelor's degree in Computer Science. I am currently a Junior at the University of Texas at Dallas. I am always searching for ways on how to use computational processes to build websites, mine data, and much more. I want to be a successful developer, and one of my main goals is to bridge the gender gap in the computing field. I hope to make a positive difference in the world one day!