Adventures in Software Engineering
21 Jan 2023
Got Interests?
As far as interest in software engineering goes, I do not have very many. This might sound terrible, and if you’re a job recruiter please don’t leave just yet. I say I don’t have many interests because at this point in my life, I haven’t had many experiences that have exposed me to different areas in software engineering. In the core classes of computer engineering there is not much material about the different fields of software engineering. The classes give you a base that will allow you to explore the different fields when you take electives, do projects, and work at internships or jobs.
Solving Problems
Up until now, I have done a project that dealt with machine learning and developed an application for Android devices. I can confidently say that I enjoyed both of these projects about the same amount. This is because I’ve found that I enjoy the problem solving part of software engineering more than the actual thing that I am working on. I like the feeling of solving a problem, whether it’s finding the best way to train a neural network, or implementing a feature on my application that makes the user experience better. I think that this is why software engineering is so appealing to me, any job I get will require me to solve problems.
What the Future Holds
In the future I would like to explore more software engineering opportunities. Although I do enjoy the problem solving aspect of software engineering, I find it fascinating to work on and learn about many different projects. I especially like the idea of working on projects that are on the cutting edge of technology because knowing I was a part of something that was groundbreaking would be deeply satisfying. To achieve these goals, I believe the greatest asset I can have is being a better programmer. All the jobs and internships I hear about have coding interviews that often require one to be a very competent programmer. Improving my programming skills would help greatly in my endeavor of finding the job I want. In my case, the ability of optimizing programs may be the skill that I need to improve most. When I have a programming problem given to me, I can think of solutions, but they are often not the best way to solve that problem. Learning strategies that will help with optimization would allow me to think of better ways to solve problems.