Capstone

Beginning of an Ending

This week is the beginning of a new term, but it also marks an end because if all goes well this term, it will be my last at OSU. I don’t think I’m in any sort of unique position here given that capstone is usually a student’s last course before embarking on a new professional career, but I can’t help but feel a little bit of trepidation as I take one step past the academic threshold for only the second time in my life.

My time at OSU has been marked by a lot of changes in my life. In my first term in the fall of 2021 I changed jobs for the first time with a company that I’d been with for almost 6 years at the time. I’m now a data analyst, something which I’d initially thought would make a great transition into a fully fledged software engineer, but now I’m not so sure of any longer.

In my second term, winter 2022, my wife and I packed up everything we owned (again!) and moved from Maryland back down to Virginia, completing our migration from Missouri, which we had begun the year prior, to Virginia where we both grew up.

And then this past September, my wife and I welcomed our daughter, our firstborn, into the world two whole months early–I guess she was tired of waiting! The couple of months since have been an absolute blur, but they will probably be remembered as both the most terrifying and exciting of my life.

And in between all of that, I’ve been learning and growing as a software engineer. There’s a shelf in my home office that has been growing full of all sorts of programming and software books over the past year and some change. And my Github has been expanding with all of the new side projects I’ve started (some finished, or, nearly finished), challenging myself to try a new language or some new framework that I’ve learned about in one of my classes.

What the future holds… who even knows? I’ve been on paternity leave since November and applying to jobs like mad, but unfortunately hearing back from very few companies given that it’s the slow period for hiring. That said, I’m hopeful though that I can produce something polished in this capstone class and hang it proudly on my resume. At this time, projects haven’t been assigned, so I can only make an educated guess as to what I’ll find myself working on and I have absolutely no idea who I’ll be working with, but I’m excited for whatever challenge might come of it.