It is a very long and complicated story. My life has been like the drifting feather in the opening of the movie "Forrest Gump." But, to make it short... it was "love at first sight." I visited the technical university, MIT, the summer before entering college. An "open house" was in progress. Departments were showing off their projects. One of them was showing a "small" computer, like this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PDP-1 This computer was used interactively, which was unusual then. It had been donated to MIT, so it was easy to get time on it just by asking. They showed off some programs. It was hands-on. They put a punched paper tape into the reader, moved a lever. The tape would read in, flip-flip-flip-flip-flip. The lights would blink. There was a video screen, unusual back then. On the screen, there was an interactive video game called SpaceWar. Remember, this is the mid-1960s, more than ten years before the first arcade video games. I was completely enchanted, and said to myself "Someday I want to do that!" And in the mid 1970s I began programming professionally, and did it for over forty years. In the musical, "A Chorus Line," a young dancer sings about being a kid, watching dancers, and being thunderstruck with the realization: "I can do that!" Well, that's how it was for me.

looked at the starting salaries and earning potential, also factored in the industry size and growth potential in the industry and lastly the probability that the work could be automated in my lifetime.