{"id":1,"date":"2023-03-31T18:45:37","date_gmt":"2023-03-31T18:45:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/burdetbe\/?p=1"},"modified":"2023-03-31T20:51:39","modified_gmt":"2023-03-31T20:51:39","slug":"break-the-ice-hello-world-is-cool","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/burdetbe\/break-the-ice-hello-world-is-cool\/","title":{"rendered":"Break the Ice: ‘Hello World’ is Cool"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Background<\/h3>\n\n\n

\"Hello<\/p>\n

My name is Ben Burdett, and I am a solutions\/integration engineer at a San Francisco-based start-up, working remotely from Florida. While I’ve been working with data integrations for almost 2 years now, I find myself experimenting with technologies related to stock trading and political interests in my free time. I enjoy making work more efficient, and with the recent surge in AI, I find the field all the more compelling.<\/p>\n\n\n

Why Computer Science?<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

After graduating from Virginia Tech, I took a position as an operations manager at a start-up, where I wore many hats, including optimizing workflows, product procurement, managing teams of up to 40 members, and creating a marketing vision for the company. During this time, I became interested in technology and computer science while working on the company website, optimizing SEO, keywords, and hyperlinks to create a fluid site map for Google to crawl. This opened my eyes to a world I never knew existed, leading me to earn a second bachelor’s degree in computer science. While continuing to work in the construction industry, I set aside nights and weekends to pursue this degree, eventually landing a position as a data integration consultant just six months into the program.<\/p>\n\n\n

Why did you choose the projects you did on the survey? What makes them interesting to you?<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n

\"AI\"I’m passionate about smart investing and have a fun track record in this area. I’m excited to explore the possibilities of AI in this field and learn how it works. The buzz around AI is compelling, and I want to stay ahead of the curve. I have been experimenting with OpenAI’s ChatGPT and of course am very intrigued with AI and NLP the more I dig in. I also have used Binance’s<\/a> API before and feel that I would know where to stat from day one to get that implemented for the crypto project. Trading is fascinating and build a software to make that either more accessible, user friendly, perform better, or a little of all would be something I truly find enjoyable to finish up this program.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n

What do you hope to learn from your project?<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n

My ultimate goal in this course is to code every day and make my GitHub<\/a> account shine bright green. I want to create a project that I’m proud of and build relationships with new programmers while learning from each other. I really want to use all the material I have learned over the past 2 years and solve a real world problem that maybe one day could be “the next big thing.” There are also no AI courses that I was able to take while in the program and would love to get a foot in the door for future employment opportunities.<\/p>\n\n