Why a software engineer is starting a business degree

On 12 November I start my first class in a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration. I've worked as a software engineer for almost two and a half years, and I'm keeping that job.

The degree is the online BSBA from the University of the People. I'm enrolled as a degree-seeking student.

The choice I made in second year

I taught myself to code before I started computer science, so I'd be ahead of everyone when I got there. The plan was simple: grind LeetCode, learn data structures and system design, land a job at Google or Microsoft.

Near the end of my second year, right when that grind was supposed to start, ChatGPT came out. The same year, I joined a nationwide entrepreneurship program in college.

I tried to prepare for interviews and build a business at the same time. I tried more than once, and it never worked. Each one wanted all of my attention, so I picked entrepreneurship.

What pulled me in was the thing that had pulled me into computers: building my own world. A computer let me do that on a screen. A business looked like the nearest version of it in real life, where I own my time and do things my own way.

The program didn't go easy on me. People reviewing my pitches told me the edtech market was crowded, that I needed a better idea and a business plan, and that my Google Form with 100 responses from different continents proved nothing. It made me angry, and it made me want to keep going.

I've stuck with it since.

The bills still needed paying, so I took a software engineering job, and it's the one I still have. It's flexible about how, when and where I work, and the salary pays for the tools and experiments behind my own companies.

Why study business formally

My CS degree mostly taught me programming languages and some Java. Architecture, databases, API design, security, front-end and back-end work: I learned those on the job and on my own.

Then AI took over a lot of what that degree covered. I rant my ideas into Claude Code every day, and a working app comes out. A year ago the results frustrated me. Now they mostly don't.

What AI didn't replace is the practice. Years of building gave me the vocabulary to tell AI exactly what I want, and the judgment to see when it gets something wrong. When I look at tools people build with AI and no background, I can see where they'll break, because I built software before AI could do it for me.

I want that same grounding in business. The degree's name calls business administration a science, and unlike computer science, I don't think AI will abstract it away. AI can carry out the work. It can't be named a company's director, and it can't answer for the profit and loss.

A person has to.

The startup crowd I've spent time around says you don't need a business degree. I think someone technical who has one will use AI in business in ways I can't yet. I'd like to be that person.

I'm not quitting engineering to do this. I'm honestly not sure I should, so I picked a degree I can study online, alongside the job. And I've already built the products. What I'm working out now is how to sell them.

What I'll do while I study

I'll study and apply at the same time.

I've started working with a friend on a business of our own. I've set aside enough AI tools and cloud credits to build software and offer digital services to clients in different industries, and I want each project to teach me how that industry works. Between projects I keep building on my own, which is where the demos on Stafflo come from. Somewhere along the way, I'd also like a part-time role in a business, doing whatever a BSBA student is qualified to do.

By the end, I want business administration and years of software work to add up to one skill set, and to use it on my own businesses and on the ones I work for.

Each BSBA entry here will cover what I studied, what I applied, and where it matched what I've seen in real work, or didn't. The first class is on 12 November, and I don't plan to wait for graduation to use any of it.