Many years ago I dropped out of a Computer Science university program for a variety of reasons, but primarily because I was too disinterested to try all that hard. After a lifetime of computering, having started tinkering at 8, I simply had no alternative plan.
I took an aptitude test administered by the Johnson O’Connor Research Foundation[0] and the results were interesting and somewhat new to me. Of the many different potential career paths it indicated I would be good at, I chose design, and a few years later graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in Graphic Design/Visual Communication.
I was pretty OK as a design student, with a definite natural knack for it and learned skills that built on top of that foundation, so I tried my best to get a design job. With my web background, however, I got two contract gigs to write code instead, and then dove in after realizing I could succeed even without a CS degree. It’s been a decade now and I’m a reasonably senior software engineer who’s worked on a bunch of different stuff, and I love it.
My design background still comes in handy from time to time, especially the general problem solving skills I learned. It’s also a nice complementary set of skills for someone working on the web. And I probably wouldn’t have had that experience without the aptitude test that suggested I might be good at design.
Sure, I’m merely my own sample size of one, but that’s made me a big believer in aptitude testing results as useful information.
I took an aptitude test administered by the Johnson O’Connor Research Foundation[0] and the results were interesting and somewhat new to me. Of the many different potential career paths it indicated I would be good at, I chose design, and a few years later graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in Graphic Design/Visual Communication.
I was pretty OK as a design student, with a definite natural knack for it and learned skills that built on top of that foundation, so I tried my best to get a design job. With my web background, however, I got two contract gigs to write code instead, and then dove in after realizing I could succeed even without a CS degree. It’s been a decade now and I’m a reasonably senior software engineer who’s worked on a bunch of different stuff, and I love it.
My design background still comes in handy from time to time, especially the general problem solving skills I learned. It’s also a nice complementary set of skills for someone working on the web. And I probably wouldn’t have had that experience without the aptitude test that suggested I might be good at design.
Sure, I’m merely my own sample size of one, but that’s made me a big believer in aptitude testing results as useful information.
[0]: https://www.jocrf.org/