How I found my way - PankoAliaksandr/Knowledge-DataBase-Soft GitHub Wiki
From the very beginning I have general very important feature: desire to investigate and explore the world, do as many things as possible, be active
Belarus, Minsk, average family (poor by West standards), 13 years old: "I need to stady hard, otherwise I have no prospects in my life"
Result: school is finished with hightest grades (Indeed I studied much, however, I have never been a nerd)
I decided to focuse on Maths and Physiscs. This choise was done since my school had better education oportunities for these 2 subjects.
Lesson 1: "Do best what you can with what you have"
Frankly speaking, this choice was not 100% conscious that time. I did not realize the big picture. But I liked these 2 more than alternatives.
Lesson 2: "Be smart to pick right area (ex. in my case not profi sport) and than follow your passion (Physics VS Biology)"
Result: I started to study on the best Maths and Programming program in Belarus
From the first year of education I started to read self-development books and realized that I want to become an entrepreneur.
Comparing business ideas and programming I had no doubt that business is much more interesting, so I tried 4 times to start a small business:
Math tutor for pupils
Computer secvice specialist
Trampolines for children
Speed dating
After quite a while I realized that I developed incredible soft skills, but hard skills were still weak
Lesson 3: "Books are great for motivation and may be some new ideas, but no more"
Lesson 4: "Hard skills are more important than soft skills in the beginning of your carreer"
Lesson 5: "You cannot keep people together without some common goal or projects"
Lesson 6: "You need to investigate framework where you are". I finished TOP Belarussian programming program, but did not pay enough attention to opportunities in from of me. That is why I think I took around 50% from BSU.
In the end of university I continued working as a porgrammer, however, after the first half of a year I made a decision to close my last business and to emigrate to Austria. I just felt that I do not fit to Belarusian society and was not satisfying with what I was doing. There were several reasons for that. I passed English test and was enrolled to 2 universities WU and WQU. That time I made one more choice to shift to data science in finance area.
Lesson 7: "Do not afraid to change what you do not like"
Lesson 8: "Try everytime to build on top of your experience and skills. Do not select randomly"
Lesson 9: "You must precisely define your goal" In my case it was Quantitative Analyst position, since this position unites Maths, Programming and Finance and is extremely interesting for me.
I moved in Switzerland from Austria imediately when this opportunity comes.