What Got Me Hooked on ‘Tronics

CS467 – Blog #5

Image by Free-Photos from Pixabay

I’m lucky to say that I grew up in a world where the internet was just a new fad waiting to die out and also in a world where the internet runs our entire lives. I’ve always loved technology and things that go ‘beep-boop’. But the passion for technology only started to spread after I started diving into how computers worked.

The Candle – Windows 98

The candle of my passion for technology was lit in elementary school where playing computer games (mostly educational) was a common occurrence along with being forced to type correctly thanks to Mavis Beacon. I quickly picked up how to navigate the Windows 2000 operating system by just clicking stuff and seeing what happened. It also helped that our family had a desktop PC in 2000 running Windows 98 where I played a lot of PC games such as Pajama Sam, Sim City 2000, Backyard Baseball and Football, and of course, Oregon Trail.

The Kindling – Video Games

The kindling of my passion for technology was fueled by a mild, yet normalized, obsession with video games. Fate (my parents) had decided which ecosystem I would be in for over a decade. That ecosystem was PlayStation.

PlayStation 2 was the first console I received along with EA Sports’ Madden franchise, Need for Speed, and Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater. Since console online gaming was not yet widely adopted, playing video games with friends in person was a large part of my childhood which further fueled the passion for technology and learning how it works. I even received clear wireless controllers so you could see the circuit boards, wires, and how the buttons actuated.

Interacting with digital media (such as video games) left an enormous impression on me which made it seem that anything is possible with computers. In my late teens, I started watching educational videos on YouTube about how computers work and what hardware is required. I would recommend Sixty Symbols as well as Computerphile to anyone who is curious about how computers work.

The Campfire – Supercomputers and Web Development

The kindling turned into a raging campfire during college. In my second year while studying chemistry, I was a part of a computational chemistry research project where we needed to use the school’s super computer cluster to perform various quantum mechanics calculations of which I still don’t understand half of. But what I did understand was how cool it was to type in commands in a console which made a huge computer crunch data.

This was my first experience with Linux. I learned the basic bash commands needed to talk to the supercomputer which in turn gave me data needed for our research project. This is where I started realizing that I truly enjoyed working with computers and it made me want to learn more and more about them.

At the tail end of my college career (well my first college career), I became extremely passionate about renewable energy. So I naïvely created a renewable energy consulting company. I made a website using the drag and drop website builder, Wix.com which was a landing page and provided educational resources for users on renewable energy. I quickly learned that designing the website was far more fun than trying to score clients.

As I struggled to find clients who would trust a 20 year old with “expertise”, I dissolved the company (it was just me), and found a job. It was at this job that I became known to make some sophisticated spreadsheet formulas and was the go-to person to help with advanced Excel functions. My confidence in working with computers and simple Excel programs sky-rocketed; thus throwing fuel on the campfire.

My passion for renewable energy dwindled but my passion for programming and computers became out of control. Out of shear curiosity, I started learning how to make your own website using React.JS, JavaScript, and HTML/CSS. This led me to make a few websites for fun and I quickly realized that if I could make this a career, I would.

The Forest Fire – Python and x86 Assembly

The conditions in my life were just right to produce a wildfire of passion for technology that I enrolled in Oregon State University’s Post-Baccalaureate program and began seriously studying how to control billions of transistors with the end-goal being a career in technology.

Python was the first real programming language that I became fluent in. It took a while to learn the ins and outs of object-oriented programming with Python, but it was worth it. At first, programming languages are complete hieroglyphics. But once you are able to read what the code does, it changes the game.

Being in OSU’s program forced me to talk to computers in a way that I hope I never will need to in my career. The course on Assembly taught x86 Assembly language and forced me to read and write code in a low-level programming language. Had I been self-taught, I would not have studied this on my own. Having gone through this course, I did gain a stronger understanding of how high-level codes is translated to a lower-level programming language which is then turned into machine language where 0s and 1s are flying everywhere.

Being able to create working programs is extremely rewarding and continues to spread my passion for technology. I don’t see this fire being contained for a while…