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Talking to Strangers The summer of 1990, my friends and I took a trip to Israel. We traveled all over the country, spending a few nights in each major city. A few weeks into the trip, we spent the night at a youth hostel right by the Masada. We were to climb the mountain early in the morning, before it got unbearably hot. As we chitchatted in the yard of the hostel, a group of Americans joined our conversation. At 15, I already knew that I wanted to attend college in the United States and I also knew that I wanted to study computer science. As I told one of the American strangers about my life goals and dreams, he said, "If you want to study computers, you should go to Carnegie Mellon." I had never heard of CMU, so I ran back to my little room and scribbled the name of the university in my diary. After I returned back to Istanbul, I did some research and found out that CMU was indeed quite a well-regarded computer science college. I even flew halfway across the world to visit the campus and fell in love with it. So I spent the next few months working, praying, and begging to get in. And I did. The winter of 1996, a few months before I graduated college, I cut my Christmas break early and flew back from Turkey to New York. In New York, I changed planes to reach my final destination, Boston. That winter happened to be a particularly bad one so our flight sat on the ground for quite some time and we were stuck inside the plane. I'd already been flying for twelve hours so to say that I was slightly anxious to get there wouldn't be an exaggeration. I was thoroughly bored and trying to stay awake, so I started chatting with the gentleman seated next to me. I truly can't remember how the subject matter came up but we started talking about programming. I started talking about interviewing. He asked me if I'd ever heard of a specific firm and I said, "Sure. They recruit heavily at CMU. They're mostly looking for Cobol programmers, though." We started discussing the details of several different programming languages. Our plane was still sitting on the ground. After an hour or so, the gentleman took out his business card and handed it over to me. Of course, he worked at the firm I'd just dissed and he was a Vice President. He got my email address and asked me to come down to New Jersey for an interview. Which I did, and after presenting me a book on Cobol, he offered me a job. And I took it. (Actually I didn't, but wouldn't my story be neater if I had?) I've had many incredible coincidences, random strangers who completely changed my life. Sometimes life works in magical ways. And if you're sitting on a plane, make sure to talk to the person next to you. Previously? Crappy Men. |
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