The Doctor I Never Became, Then

From Teenage to University

Among all the internal conflicts of teenage, there is one major struggle: Who do you want to be in the future? What is the work you want to do? What is the passion that actually drives you?
But there is always the family factor. They want you to be what they want, planning a future they believe is best for you, though it might only be best for them. I faced this with my father. In the Arab world, it’s common for parents to want their children to become doctors, usually for the social prestige. I don’t know why being a doctor is something the middle class uses to show off in society.

In my father’s case, it wasn’t about prestige. He simply didn’t trust doctors and wanted one of his children to be one just to take care of the family. Since I was his only hope, he expected me, more than anyone else, not to let him down.

When he started sharing his plans for my future, hoping my grades would get me into medical school, my response was blunt: “I might get the grades for it, but I will never be a doctor.”

My father’s dream vs my own

I can still see the anger on his face. He asked me, “Why? How do you see yourself then?” I paused, then answered, “A computer engineer.” He stayed quiet for a moment, then muttered that maybe an engineer was better than whatever “crazy” thing my brothers had done before.
In 2003, I was accepted into the College of Software Engineering. Surprisingly, I wasn’t that happy. I had already started working in the networking field, and there was a massive gap between the academic world and the job market. At the time, a country like Iraq needed networking skills much more than software development. There were many colleges for programming but not a single university teaching networking, even though the market was desperate for network engineers.

Maybe that gap worked in my favor. I was constantly studying Cisco books on my own, which meant I had very little competition. I quickly moved ahead of my peers. Today, all that remains of those years is a distant memory and this single photo.