From NEET Aspirant to Writing Code: A Journey I Never Planned

*This is a submission for the [2026 WeCoded Challenge](https://dev.to/challenges/wecoded-2026): Echoes of Experience* If someone had told me a few years ago that I would be writing code and leading developers, I probably wouldn’t have believed them. Because my journey into tech wasn’t planned at all. I actually started in a completely different direction. ## A Different Dream I studied in the medical stream until 12th grade. Like many students in India, my goal was to clear National Eligibility cum Entrance Test and pursue medicine. During the COVID period, I joined a coaching institute to prepare for the exam. That phase of my life was intense. Our routine looked something like this: - Early morning classes - Self-study the entire day - Practice tests regularly - Studying late into the night - Sometimes we studied until 3 or 4 in the morning. - And Sundays weren’t holidays. Sundays were test days. - It was exhausting, but I was determined. - I gave it everything I had. ## When Things Don’t Go As Planned Despite all that effort, I didn’t clear the exam that year. Around that time, my health also started affecting my preparation, and I eventually came back home earlier than expected. It felt like a huge pause in my life. For the first time in a long time, I didn’t know what the next step was supposed to be. ## Discovering Coding (Completely by Accident) One day while scrolling through YouTube, I came across videos about programming. The idea that caught my attention was simple: “Coding is becoming a fundamental skill. Everyone should at least know the basics.” Out of curiosity, I decided to try it. I had zero background in tech. No computer science classes. No programming knowledge. No idea what developers even did daily. But something about it clicked immediately. ## Realizing I Learn Fast Once I started learning, I realized something about myself: I learn technical things very quickly when I’m curious about them. I spent hours learning from tutorials, building small things, and experimenting. The same discipline I used while preparing for medical exams helped me here too. Late nights of studying weren’t new to me. Except this time, instead of biology diagrams, I was debugging code. And slowly, things started moving faster than I expected. ## Moving Faster Than I Thought Within a relatively short time, I started gaining confidence in development. I worked on projects, collaborated with others, and kept improving. At one point, something surprising happened: I started performing better than people who had started before me. Eventually, I even became a team lead, guiding other developers. It was a moment where I paused and thought: “How did someone who didn’t even know coding existed a short time ago end up here?” ## What This Journey Taught Me Looking back, the path seems unexpected, but the lessons are clear. First, your starting point doesn’t define your destination. I came from a medical background, yet found my place in tech. Second, discipline transfers across fields. The study habits I built during my exam preparation helped me learn programming faster. And finally, curiosity can completely change your life. One random YouTube video was enough to open a door I didn’t even know existed. ## A Thought for Anyone Starting Something New If you’re someone switching fields or starting late, remember this: You don’t need the perfect background to succeed in tech. Sometimes all you need is curiosity, persistence, and the willingness to keep learning. Your journey might not look like everyone else’s. And that’s perfectly okay. <!-- Thanks for participating! -->