While going through my photo gallery, I found back this picture. This is a game of monopoly. Back in 2022, I coded this game in Java with a school mate. It was my first serious coding project beyond the usual exercises we would do in Python. And it’s maybe a bit silly to say, but this project of coding a Monopoly had a huge impact on where I am standing today.
I have always been this person curious about many things, always interested in many different topics and never really settling for one subject more than the others. In fact during high school I was in a scientific program but my best grades where in literature and philosophy, I used to be good at it somehow.
After high school, I have decided to pursue some studies which would keep me busy with many different fields, and keep many opportunities opened since I was more than confused which job would be fitting me. I opted for what we call in french « Classes préparatoires » which are basically two years of intensive studies ending with a national exam for you to later join an engineering school. I used to have amazing professors over there, the best I ever had by far. I remember this feeling of respect and admiration they used to give me while attending their lectures, it was truly amazing. One of them used to teach us physics. Still confused with what to do next, I remember once approaching him at the end of a course and asking him some advice on which engineering school to choose. His response was something like:
« Mr Flandre, you need a generalist school ».
What he meant by that was a school providing a broad curriculum, covering topics like robotics or civil engineering, all within one place.
So I followed this advice. I joined a generalist school with the intent to later specialise in the energy field since it was of interest to me and close to physics which I used to enjoy a lot. The nice thing about this kind of school is that your first year covers this broad curriculum I was mentioning. We studied probability, statistics, mechanical engineering, energy, management, computer science and so on. In my school we used to work in groups on different projects. We used to have conventional exams too, but many were also rated based on projects. I used to enjoy these a lot since it was more practical than standard exams. Somehow I felt more engaged and actively doing something this way.
One of these projects was the monopoly game I was referring to. We basically had the freedom to do any project we wanted, the only constraints were to code it in Java and that it had to be a game. So somehow with my schoolmate we chose to build a Monopoly. I don’t exactly remember why we chose that, I never really played this game that much.
We started coding this project, and I remember it being very hard at the beginning since we were just learning the language. Back then we used to go through the documentation (hard not to feel like a grandpa saying this), Stack Overflow, all of these things. The learning process was long and tedious. But for the very first time I had this feeling of deep satisfaction and interest in a project. For the very first time I truly felt like I wanted to spend all my time coding this thing. I remember spending a huge chunk of my Christmas holidays just working on this, nothing else, simply because I enjoyed it. For the first time, « working » never felt like a burden, something I had to do against my will. It just felt like I was genuinely doing something I loved. Sure I loved doing maths and physics too, but somehow this was hitting different. The satisfaction I used to have when coding something and actually seeing it coming alive was truly amazing. I don’t remember having an amazing grade on this project though, but I didn’t really care, I had such a great time going through it. The rest of the story is that I gave up my initial thoughts of studying energy and joined the computer science department of my school. Similar patterns of asking for advice and stumbling upon an unexpected experience happened later on for me with research. I thought I wanted a job in the industry as an engineer, somehow I am now doing research :)
Today I still have the same feeling for the projects I am working on, which can be somehow unhealthy when the frontier between work and personal life starts to blur. But when I think about it, I never feel like I am actually working. I do not remember once waking up feeling like staying in bed and not wanting to go to the office. It’s not to say that every day is necessarily easy, but at least occupation wise, it’s always a pleasure.
To wrap this up, I guess the main takeaway from this blog post is that life is made of unexpected experiences which make us change our mind completely. And if today you are feeling confused about something, whether a personal matter or a career decision, don’t hesitate to ask for advice around you and somehow just trust the process of life, it will provide you with answers, especially when you expect them the least.