Lifelong Learning
05 Sep 2019
Great Expectations
Some may argue that software engineering is not real engineering, developers don’t have to worry about stress testing bridge supports, what magic is involved with electromagnetism and physics or their environmental impact. Software engineers are people that can create things that the modern era have begun to stake their lives on: cyber security, data scraping/analysis, entertainment and many more. Most importantly they exhibit the fundamental virtue of engineering, and my favorite part about developing, which is proper problem solving.
“Let’s Build an app together!”
If we were talking about what we want to learn within the context of this class, my immediate thought is creating a web app that I enjoy - then find a way to monetize it. I’m in an interesting position where I work as a web developer at a news media. Along with maintaing the site, we are also thinking about how to engage the student population and leverage that interaction with the local businesss. In this way, we provide a service that no one else could replicate just by the virtue that we have an unhindered conenction with a profitable demographic. Therefore, my interest in software engineering is bridging gaps in all kinds of mediums. I particulary want to dip my toes in emerging technology such as data science and machine learning along with my initial intereset of web and mobile application development.
Lifelong Learning
Software engineering is touted as a job that will continously evolve - no set paradigm, library, language, and framework will last long enough to warrant a stoppage in learning. Along with having a hand within specific technologies, I want to cultivate skills and habits that would allow me digest these new techniques. One good way is to further deepen my understanding of my hobbies, one good advice that people will give to to fledgling programmers is to create something that you will use. If it relates to something I want to do, then its more likely that not only will I finish it but also go above and beyond. It’s been made clear to me that software engineering will be kind to those who continue to learn and seek new things. Seeing as how my interests aren’t focused yet, I chose to study Computer Engineering instead of continuing straight as a Computer Science student. The diversity of the curriculum meant that I get to try out my initial interests and also be exposed to other avenues of engineering. I believe that my interaction with software is through a medium that doesn’t uniformly conform to just computers.