With this initial sense of what I wanted to do, I studied Nanoengineering and worked in biotech and pharma for a few years. While working on a project, I learned more about computer science and how engineers would develop new applications and update existing features to support our endeavors.
This was my catalyst for change.
I started with learning Python and R on the side in order to analyze and visualize our datasets, and slowly began to write programs to simplify tasks. I was able to learn enough to get started, and enough to get things working - but not enough to ever fully be confident in my implementations, or the results they produced.
It felt like a fork in the road: I could either continue in medicinal chemistry, or take a deeper dive into
programming. After much contemplation, I decided that I wanted to give this a "proper chance" - to learn the fundamentals,
and to perservere through the gauntlet of classes.
Not "just enough," but everything.