Brennans Blog

At first, learning Git as a computer science student felt overwhelming. The commands seemed cryptic, and every mistake felt like it could break my entire project. I struggled with concepts like branching, rebasing, and resolving merge conflicts, often resorting to deleting my repository and starting over rather than troubleshooting. Group projects made things even more frustrating. One wrong git push could overwrite someone else’s work, and I constantly worried about messing up the shared repository. It felt like an unnecessary obstacle rather than a helpful tool, and I found myself dreading every interaction with version control.

But over time, as I gained more experience, Git started to click. I realized how powerful it was in keeping my work organized and preventing major mistakes. Commands that once felt confusing became second nature, and I started appreciating features like git stash, interactive rebasing, and the ability to roll back changes with ease. Seeing how Git helped with collaboration in group projects, especially when using GitHub for pull requests and code reviews, made me respect it as a valuable tool even more. Now, I can’t imagine coding without it. At first, it was a really frustrating roadblock but has become an essential skill that I actually enjoy using.

As the term comes to a close, it’s incredible to reflect on everything we’ve learned and accomplished. Our final project was a real test of collaboration, problem-solving, and applying the skills we’ve built over the past weeks. Working on a team project always comes with its challenges, but it’s also a rewarding experience to see how everyone’s unique strengths come together to create something bigger than what any of us could have done alone.

My portion of the project was a deep dive into creating a functional API with authentication and database integration. My focus was implementing a middleware authentication system, ensuring our API could verify requests securely. While writing the code was satisfying, the journey wasn’t without hurdles. For instance, debugging the connection between the database and verifying the responses in Postman taught me that persistence and teamwork are crucial. Whenever I hit a wall, my groupmates were there to brainstorm ideas and help find solutions.

Beyond the technical aspects, what stood out the most was the way we navigated challenges together. Whether it was dividing tasks, giving feedback on each other’s work, or just sharing a laugh over late-night coding sessions, the project was a reminder that great work doesn’t happen in isolation. It happens when we’re willing to communicate, adapt, and lift each other up. As we submit this final project, I’m proud not just of the code we wrote but of the experience we shared as a team.

Up until my late 20’s, I’d always felt that I had pretty poor time management skills. It was difficult for me to find the time in the day to get everything done that I needed to get done. At this point in my life I had a wife, a job, and a dog. And yet it still felt like there weren’t enough hours in the day. Fast forward five years; I still have the wife, still have the dog, and the job, but I also have a six month old, a two year old, am in my senior year of my computer science degree, and have a much more demanding job (and searching for a new one). Yet somehow I feel that I am able to accomplish everything I set out to do at the beginning of the day.

I attribute this success to growing my time management skills. Setting realistic goals of what can be done for the day, the week, and the month, and then prioritizing those goals with realistic expectations. Using a calendar for my personal life and professional life has been one of the driving forces behind this newfound ability. At the beginning of each week, I create a list of what I need and want to accomplish that week. I estimate how long each task will take by breaking each them down into smaller tasks. I then add these to my calendar, leaving room for feeding my kids, playing with them, bedtimes, cooking dinner, etc.

Ensuring I have enough time to study, complete each assignment, and feel like I actually retained the knowledge has been the most difficult task to manage. It’s hard to know how much time an assignment will take before you start, which is why I try to start early and work on it often. The key is to never get behind (way easier said than done). But as I have progressed through the program, I’ve gotten a lot better at estimating how long these assignments will take and mapping my time out accordingly.

Time management is such an important skill that is transferrable to all aspects of life. Showing potential employers that I can juggle a lot on my plate at once has been incredibly helpful when interviewing for jobs, showcasing that I know how to prioritize what is important. As long as you have a plan and the right tools to get it done, you can accomplish much more than you think.

Hello all! My first blog post for Oregon State and my first blog post period! My name is James, but I go by Brennan. I am in my senior year at Oregon State working towards a bachelor’s degree in Computer Science. I currently work as a Solutions Engineer at a SaaS company. While this sounds like a made up silicon valley term (because it is) it really is pretty simple. I work with our sales team, creating technical demos and answering technical questions that our prospective customers have. I work with our enterprise product, our highest offering, which is purchased mostly by entrepreneurs, small and large businesses.

I thoroughly enjoy what I do, but ultimately I would like to work in Product or Program Management in the tech space. I thoroughly enjoy creating software, but throughout my studies and work experience, I’ve found much more enjoyment in managing projects and creating the bigger picture. After Oregon State, I am going to continue on to get my MBA to hopefully contribute to my future success in management positions.

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