“Little by little, one travels far.” — J.R.R. Tolkien
This blog will document a journey—more precisely, a journey within a journey. As I approach the end of my degree at OSU, I can’t help but wonder about the extent of my capabilities. I’ve accumulated a wealth of knowledge, much of which I’ve applied to various side projects, but I’ve never undertaken a “BIG” one. By big, I don’t mean a project with countless lines of code or unnecessary complexity. I mean something that meaningfully represents and enhances my accumulated skills.
Sure, I’ve completed plenty of projects, but I’ve never had my work stress-tested by the realities of a long-term production environment. My work has only been scrutinized by a few professors and TAs. I want to hear from real users, industry experts, and professionals in software. It’s time to step out of the classroom and into the real world.
About me
My name is Bradley, and I recently moved to Iowa from Northern California. I spend my time in the gym or configuring my vimrc.
I wish I had a story about how I started coding at age three and emulated Angry Birds on my TI-84, but unfortunately, that’s not the case. Around 2020, I moved to Brazil for a short time and had nothing to do for work for months. So, I decided to finally explore a long-held curiosity—Python programming. I immediately felt a sense of power that had me hooked. I enrolled in OSU immediately and got to work.
I currently work in sales for a major telecom company. Although I love my job, I’d rather be developing the internal tools than just using them. Some of them are downright horrific. Give me $70k and a year, and I can fix them—please. Wait a second… I have a message to send on Teams. Surely if I @ the CEO directly, they’ll give me a chance!
Well… they erased my message, but good news! I have a meeting with HR on Monday! Surely to discuss the terms of my new job title as Principal Engineer!
On another note, my goal for my capstone is to learn new technologies and create something that someone would be willing to pay real money for. By “real money,” I don’t mean a lot—just actual currency, not Monopoly money or Robux. Turns out Taco Bell doesn’t accept Robux, and if it can’t buy a Cheesy Gordita Crunch, what’s the point? I’m NEVER making that mistake again. But seriously, I want to impress, and I’m willing to put in the work.
Projects that interest me
- Language Immersion Virtual Environment (LIVE): This is particularly interesting to me because I’m currently studying Portuguese. Learning desired technologies, improving language skills, and creating an amazing project for the course—this is like killing three birds with one stone.
- Parchment: This is an amazing idea and uses technologies that I already know and want to learn. I lack experience working with large codebases, and this is a great chance to practice.
- Improving Healthcare Cost Transparency Using AI: This project solves a serious problem and uses technologies I’m very familiar with.
Until next time
Bye.
