An Engineer, a Doctor or a Failure: One Student’s Journey to Find Their Own Way

Following the Algorithm 

Growing up in Jordan, Faisal Shahin—a current Applied Computer Science Post-Baccalaureate student—was surrounded by family who were deeply invested in his success. Early on, they even guided him toward their ideal career paths. 

“As a firstborn male in a conservative Middle-Eastern family, you're either an engineer, a doctor or a failure,” said Shahin. 

Like many adolescents, Shahin chafed at these early expectations, exerting a will of his own within the confines he was given. 

“The name of the game in Jordan is private school. There's no good public education, so when my parents were picking schools, I said, ‘I don't want to go to the places that you are thinking of, because they're all full of snobs,’” said Shahin. “So I went to an American high school in Jordan. It was built for the kids of people who worked in the U.S. Embassy or other Embassies. It’s a very diverse community, which is why I chose it.”

Despite initially struggling to speak English, Shahin fostered connections and gained a new, worldwide perspective. 

“You get to meet so many people from so many different places. I had friends from Kazakhstan, Germany, South Korea, China and Sudan,” said Shahin. “My graduating class was 45 people—30% were from Jordan and the U.S. and the rest were from around the world.”

When it came time to pick a destination for college, however, Shahin once again contended with his family. 

“It’s standard within the community we grew up in to study abroad,” said Shahin. “Most of my

 friends went to the UK, but I wanted to be as far away as my parents would let me.”

Eventually, Shahin landed on Michigan State University. Despite the thousands of miles of separation, Shahin was unable to choose a major outside of his parents prescribed degree pathways.

“The family has a lot of control over a lot of aspects of your life in Middle Eastern culture,” said Shahin. “So when I said I wanted to do computer science, my dad said, ‘That's a waste of time.’ That put a lid on it. I didn't want to go to school for 20 years to be a doctor, so I chose civil engineering which was something I could easily get a job in when I came back home,” said Shahin. “It checked the box of not being a failure and I went with it.”

Feeling dispassionate about the subject, Shahin nevertheless continued to study, focusing on hydraulics and hydrology in the later half of his undergraduate education. 

After graduating and receiving a civil engineering position in 2020, Shahin felt compelled to follow the course he was on. He initially found enjoyment in the work before becoming listless once again. 

“A lot of entry-level jobs in civil engineering are very field-focused, so you're out on construction sites 12-plus hours a day, six days a week,” said Shahin. “At first, it was fun seeing different places and talking to people, but it wears on you.” 

One of his early civil engineering jobs took Shahin to the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota to work on a dam. Shahin’s project manager offered him the opportunity to relocate to Colorado permanently and he took the chance. However, Shahin reached his tipping point when he understood that he wanted more agency over the projects he worked on—a difficult feat in his career field. 

“One of the many reasons I didn’t want to do civil engineering anymore is that there's not a lot of ownership over solving problems,” said Shahin. “I've always liked actually solving problems and not being told how to solve problems.”

The solution came in the form of computer science, the subject that had initially intrigued Shahin and would allow him more autonomy in his work.  

“I enjoy the problem-solving aspect of computer science,” said Shahin. “You can take a lot of ownership on what works and what doesn't. Whether you figure something out or not, it’s on you.”

Software Update

Despite desperately wanting to leave his civil engineering career, Shahin grappled with the decision to upend his life. 

“Before I made the transition to computer science, I didn't know many people that made the transition out of civil engineering, so there was a lot of skepticism on my end because I’m potentially wasting five years of progress,” said Shahin. ”But then I made the decision to do it.”

While looking at computer science programs in Colorado, Shahin was drawn to CU Boulder’s Applied Computer Science Post-Baccalaureate program for its comprehensive overview of the subject and its limited prerequisites unlike the other master’s programs he was considering. 

After enrolling in the program, Shahin initially kept his civil engineering job while completing coursework in the program. 

“I took 7 credits a semester and was working 40-plus hours a week,” said Shahin. “By the time the end of the semester came around, I'd be very tired and I felt like I was rushing through things rather than taking my time to figure them out, because I had to. I was fueled by wanting to leave my job. I really didn’t want to do it anymore, so it was worth it for me.”

Nevertheless, Shahin decided to leave his civil engineering job to pursue the program full time. He is quickly making his way through the program with an anticipated graduation date of May 2026. 

“I'm taking four classes now,” said Shahin. “The classwork is fun, the professors are great and I'm still talking to people in class, so I'm getting social interaction—it's not just me and work.”

While taking classes at a break-neck pace, Shahin is still enjoying the subject matter, exploring topics that he hopes will help him find a job. 

“Natural language processing was really fun. This upcoming semester I'm mostly focused on data science,” said Shahin. “Honestly, I just want to take the hardest classes because I might as well get the most out of the program.”

As for his future career path, Shahin is eyeing data science AI or robotics, but anything outside of civil engineering is on the table. 

Shahin still has one hurdle left before finally breaking into the computer science field though: his family. 

“I didn't tell them [about switching fields] at first,” said Shahin. “There's a lot of family support in the Middle East, but there's also a lot of things that you will not be supported in. It’s one of those things where if I said, ‘I'm not enjoying what I'm doing right now and I'm trying to do something else,’ my parents would say, ‘Alright, why don't you just come back home, and we'll figure it out.’ So I just wanted to avoid that conversation because there's no way around it.”

Shahin has opted to reveal his decision gradually, with the hope that they will accept his chosen path. 

For now, Shahin is coding his own future—line by line—confident that the path he’s building is finally his own.