Why Computer Science?
06 Aug 2019
The Plan
My current goal for getting a bachelors degree in Computer Science is to become a game developer, and I hope to pick up many diverse skills and make many connections along the way, but even though I’m in my third year, that path ahead seems long and shakey. As I am now, I’m not the fastest problem solver or the most experienced programmer and up until freshman year of college, I had no idea what major would be of best interest to me. Nevertheless I’m determined to learn as much as I can, become more experienced, and earn that degree.
My First Step
Throughout high school, teachers and couselors would always tell me not to worry if I haven’t decided on a major because I still have time, but when regeistration for college came around I was alarmed. There were signs everywhere saying it takes four years to graduate and my friends had all decided which track they would focus on but I didn’t want to be that person going through college with no career goal. Saying I had no idea what my interests were was an overstatement, because I was curious about computers and I liked playing games, but I wasn’t ready to commit myself towards that path just yet. I was pretty good at math and logic, and I enjoyed subjects with free expression like art, but I wasn’t skilled in drawing and I couldn’t see myself doing math problems for the rest of my life so thats when I decided on computer science.
Pulling Through
So here I was starting my freshman year as an ICS student having no idea what to expect. People would often be impressed when I mentioned that I was studying computer science, saying that it’s hard and I must be smart, but I took those words with a grain of salt, thinking that was just common courtesy. Two years went by and I realized how naive I was. Computer Science was nothing like what I’ve learned in the past, with all the coding styles and languages. Theres no wonder why each programming style is called a “language”. For me, it was a struggle as I though of myself as slower than my peers. In every class there was at least one person who would ask all the questions and would get all the problems and homeworks done perfectly which was discouraging in comparison, but after completing ICS 212 I became more optimistic. The professor of that class said his course would be the make it or break it for ICS students and me passing it felt like a relief. Although I had my doubts, what kept me going was my interest in coding and the mindset that if my classmates can do it, so can I.
There’s an I in Improvement
Software engineering is not my main focus, but the lessons to be learned seem valuable and beneficial towards my goal, especially with the workout-of-the-days which is solving coding problems in a set amount of time, which will improve my programming speed. This subject is like the next step to game development and I hope to learn as much as I can from this course and future lessons no matter how challenging they may be.