Software Engineering is Hard
31 Aug 2022int time = 0;
Let’s go all the way back to when I first started getting interested in software engineering, at time = 0. It began in highschool when I began wondering how video games were created, how programs functioned, and what happenes underneath all that GUI. I was keen to learn how everything that appeared on my screen came about. The only problem was I had no idea where to begin. There were a few tutorials that I found on YouTube but after a few hours I was completely lost. I did not write a single code until college when I took EE160: Programming for Engineers.
int time = currentTime();
Once college rolled around, I became interested to learn about software engineering once again. EE160: Programming for Engineers, was the first ever coding class I ever took. It taught me the basics of the C language, along with syntax and functions, to give me abasic understanding of programming. Over the course of my college career, I have taken other programming classes which taught me about object-oriented programming, and implementation of algorithms. While I have enjoyed learning more about programming, it has not been without its aches and pains. After taking EE367: Data Structures and ALgorithms, I learned a lot about algorithms used to solve problems, but can’t help but feel overwhelmed trying to remember each algorithm and how to implement it. The only difference this time is that I will not stop learning and will continue to improve my skills.
int time = currentTime() + addTenYears();
While I do not know what will happen in ten years, I am fairly confident that software engineering will be more important that it ever will be. As the world becomes more digitized, software engineers will have to come up with many solutions for the problems of the future. One skill of mine that I would like to improve along with algorithms is object-oriented programming. During my EE369: Computational Media Systems class, I learned how to integrate object-oriented programming in C# with Unity to create video games. I had some of the most fun in college during that class. With improved skills in object-oriented programming, algorithms, and other skills and I may learn along the way, I can only hope to be a valuable contributor in the software engineering community in the following years.