I Almost Quit Tech Not Because of Code, But Because of People

This is a submission for the 2026 WeCoded Challenge : Echoes of Experience When I first found out my passion for building things in tech, I was over the moon. I signed up for a training program, ready to learn, ready to build, ready to network. I had no idea I was about to face one of the toughest pits in my life, and it was not going to be my programming skills that would cause me problems. It was the people surrounding me. Feeling Isolated in a World of Passion Early on, I noticed my passion did not align with the passion levels of my peers. Their interests were different, their priorities were different. While I wanted to talk about things like coding, projects, and ideas, they wanted to talk about things like social trends, entertainment, or personal life. At first, I tried to "fit in". I changed my habits, asked no questions in class, showed no curiosity, doing things everyone was doing and even adopted new hobbies to join their conversations. But still, I felt invisible. Each day