My Story from Physics to Programming

I remember, when I was in school, my interest was in Physics. Many of my friends during intermediate suggested that I take Mechanical Engineering while my father who knew me well told me that I take Electrical and Electronics Engineering. There were days where I considered Aeronautical Engineering too. But I hated programming. I was first introduced to it in my ninth grade and I never understood the importance of it. We memorised the Java programs and put it on the paper in exams.  Today I'm a Computer Science and Engineering Student and I choose this branch on my own will.

It was in seventh grade that I started liking physics. Earlier, I was interested in science because it seemed logical. One day in seventh grade, I started answering the problems in the class without knowing any formulas or proper definitions to understand them. It was kinematics. It was then that I understood that physics is not some formula-subsitute subject, it requires understand and imagination to solve problems and I had them.

Back then, physics was a basic subject in which we were introduced to kinematics, ray optics, electricity and quantum mechanics. Electricity interested me more than anything because my dad used to teach me concepts since childhood whenever I asked him doubts regarding it. My then teacher said "How well you understood the concept can be known by how well you solve the problems." Keeping this in mind, I started solving problems that are at the end of the next chapter, a month before my classmates. I finished all but two by the time we came to do it in the classroom. Finding equivalent resistance was my favourite and at that time, my friends were having difficulty in differentiating between series and parallel connections.

I was good at basics of kinematics and electricity. Both these branches of physics are used in making robots. So, robotics interested me. That was the time when I started using google properly. I used to watch videos of different robots. I was already playing with those DC motors that I found in broken toys and I used to try various things like a vacuum pump, reverse it and get a blower and all that. Sometimes I felt like I never fit into my friends circle because most of them do not like physics, but I believed I was getting good at something so I stuck to my own interests.

One day while I was reading about a robot that cleans the house, I came across something called a micro-controller. I didn't know what it was so I googled it and it made no sense to me. Programming was something that was taught then but we just memorised it. After a few days, I came to know that it is something like an electrical circuit which can be programmed. Even then I wasn't interested in programming.

As usual, I am always interested in reading blogs or wikipedia because it was short and summarised. I used to read about it, somethings seemed like we've studied and some others were greek and latin. I was already in my Intermediate at that time. I had no leisure time literally so all my interests were put aside. Second year of Intermediate, I got really good at physics and was able to solve problems better than anyone in my class. Most of them were related to ray optics, kinematics and electricity.

One day, I looked down at my bag and was about to take a book when the if - statement struck my mind. All of a sudden it made sense to me. I remembered the loops, not syntactically but why and where it was used and also the switch case statement. That day, I came home and saw how programming is used in robotics. I came across Arduino. It seemed simple to make because even school kids were using Arduino to do robotics projects. My cousin brother was an Information Technology student in B.Tech programme at Gayatri Vidya Parishad. When he said, he took IT, I didn't understand what interested him. Now, it interests me too. 

My brother and dad were having a talk regarding which branch of engineering should I purse in my next year and I said I wanted to take either EEE or CSE/IT. My dad wanted me to take EEE but later he told me to take whatever I'm interested in. All the engineering entrance exams were over and I knew it was ANITS college I had to go to. I choose CSE and got a seat in ANITS.

I started programming in C a day before my classmates were introduced to it. I didn't understand a program to add two numbers, not the logic but the print and scan statements. I didn't give up but I emailed my errors to our teacher. The next day, after the C language class, I was appreciated for trying and putting in my efforts on my own. That encouraged me to program more. I started doing all the lab programs one week before, at home while my peers did it in the lab. I struggled a bit in the beginning but I loved that being struck and getting to know things that I was wrong at. I got pretty good at it. 

As of today, I got selected to Mission RnD 2019 program and I will put my entire effort to reach to the summer course. So did I leave physics behind? I still point at the wrong trajectories in video games. This is my story, a journey from physics to robotics to micro-controllers to programming.