just the beginning

For those of you who haven’t checked out my home page yet, welcome! My name is Danica and I am finally a senior here at Oregon State. This June, and Lord willing, I will find myself at Reser Stadium graduating with my Bachelor of Science in Computer Science, with a minor in User Experience Research and a Focus Area in Human-Computer Interactions. It’s a lot, I know, which is why this is my sixth year in college. I spent my first three at my beloved alma mater, Clackamas Community College. Unaware of what path I wanted to take in the beginning, I spent a year learning how to “do” college, be an adult, and discover what all of the paths I could take were. I knew I was a STEM student, but none of the traditional sciences interested me. On a whim, I decided to take a course in computer science. With loving encouragement from my Instructor, Jen, I signed up to take more CS courses and now, all of a sudden, here I am!

This path certainly hasn’t been an easy one. The whim that prompted me to take CS courses was my father. He has spent over 45 years in the software engineering world and could tell that it might be a good fit for me. He was able to tutor me when needed and helped build my passion. However, life seems to stand still when you receive bad news.

On July 24th, 2022, I received news that my mother’s pancreatic cancer had become terminal.

That kind of thing can really alter the course of one’s life, nevertheless one’s education. In a turn of events, I fell in love with my best friend just the day before. There was so much contrast, so many conflicting feelings. Regardless, I marched on with my education, determined to reach the end and do it for mama.

Now, here we are – I’ve officially celebrated my last “first day of school” and now I embark on my senior capstone project!

I must admit, this capstone course has been one of my bigger stressors prior to beginning. Would I find a committed team? Would I get a good project? What if the project is too difficult? Would I live up to expectations? Could I actually deliver what they expect of me? Am I capable?

imposter syndrome

a psychological condition that is characterized by persistent doubt concerning one’s abilities or accomplishments accompanied by the fear of being exposed as a fraud, despite evidence of one’s ongoing success. webster.

This is something a lot of students struggle with, and it can even include life-time professionals. As a woman in STEM, I feel that this effect is amplified. However, I count myself incredibly blessed to find my team of four. As a student with a UX/UI passion, I am suited for the design and layout of the site. Another teammate has a passion for the backend and coding portion. We all compliment each other’s skills.

This is also the perfect project for us to let each of those individual skills shine. You can imagine my disappointment when I found that the one usability capstone project was for on-campus students only. I found myself discouraged and worried that I would be forced into a project where I had to learn how to work with AI, AR/VR, or robotics. Those are all fine and necessary topics, but one’s I struggle with. After my initial discussion post in which I expressed those concerns and my desires for a project, my teammate reached out to me. They revealed that they were looking for a student with my particular skills and passions, so I jumped at the opportunity.

I’ve managed to get this far, through all five years of college. Why was I worried – of course it would be alright!

but ain’t that just the way 🙂