Switching to Software Engineering
17 Jan 2023
Lost in the Infinite Amount of Possibilities
“And submit.” I stared at the computer screen which would decide not only where I would continue my education but also how I would spend the rest of my life. Leading up to the days before college applications were due, I had no clue what I wanted to do. I always had a particular knack for math and the various sciences so it only made sense to my parents and college counselors that I pursue a career in some type of engineering. Prior to college, I had no experience with any type of engineering or coding whatsoever. I based my decision on the general salaries of the different types of engineers I found on Google. I entered UH Manoa’s electrical engineering department and continued taking required courses until the beginning of my sophomore year. Soon after exploring the basics of Python in EE 160, I discovered that I enjoyed coding much more than building electrical circuits. After taking EE 211, this discovery was cemented into my head as fact and I decided that computer engineering was a much better fit for me.
Finding My Way at UH Manoa
During the past two semesters at UH Manoa, I was able to take two courses that tested my passion for programming. The first course I took was EE 205 or Object Oriented Programming, where I was introduced to C and C++. This was a very different experience from what we had learned in EE 160. In EE 205, we wrote much more intricate programs, utilized header and source files, and learned how to push code to both Gitlab and Github. This was also my first time really diving into an IDE, which in this case was CLion. The second course I took was EE 345 or Linear Algebra and Machine Learning. This course used Python to manipulate matrices, perform linear algebra operations, and linear regression for machine learning applications. Although the concepts from both courses were very difficult for me to understand and apply at first, I believe that I learned many skills that will help me be a successful software engineer. Hopefully, ICS 314 will also help me gain knowledge about new programming languages and skills to help me be more professional and passionate.
Hopes for the Future
Specifically, my hope for ICS 314 is that I will be able to expand my skills in JavaScript, HTML, and CSS. I have no experience using these languages, but I am very interested in web development. I hope that by the end of the semester, I am able to create an easy-to-navigate website that I can implement into my own life in the future.
In my career of being a software engineer, I hope to continue developing more professionalism by improving my professional portfolio, learning to communicate and collaborate with a team better, and continuously implementing the industry’s standards into the code I write. After taking many different courses throughout my time at UH Manoa, I think the Computer Engineering program teaches the concepts needed to be a successful engineer well, however, I feel that I lack the professional skills needed to succeed. Hopefully, this course will be the first step in understanding what being a professional in the industry should look like.