This article hits really close to home. After graduating college and getting a job in biotech I quickly realized that I don't want to spend next 30years in front of a lab bench, dealing with FDA etc. so I have been learning to code. starting with Django (i knew some Python beforehand) then I realized I need some javascript, jQuery, git, MySQL. The only difference is that I love it. Each technology provides something that blows my mind.
My experiment started in May and is going while I'm holding on to my lab job. By October I hope to have a portfolio going, I have two apps ready. I really hope it will all pan out.