And so, here we are – the beginning of the end. My last class at Oregon State University. My last class as a post-bacc student. My last class before I officially have a certificate that says “this guy kinda knows what he’s doing with computers”. For the first blog of the last course of the program, I felt that it would be appropriate to take a look back at my experience with computer science as an introduction.
The Beginning of the Beginning
My first major experience with computer science was in high school. My high school required all freshmen to take an Introduction to Computer Science class, which met only twice a week and was worth only half of a credit. The class touched on a bit of everything – some HTML/CSS, a brief introduction to object oriented programming, image manipulation, some robotics, networks, etc. Honestly, it was a mess. There were too many topics that the class tried to cover and not enough times the class met, so everything was touched at a surface level. That mess infuriated me and I ended up taking every other computer science course the school offered so that I could have more experience than saying “hello world” in Java. If that was their goal, bravo.
For my college major, it was a toss up between mechanical engineering and computer science – so I literally tossed up a coin. Mechanical engineering won, but I decided to still get a minor in computer science, which unexpectedly was helpful for my first job after graduation. It was a job as an analytical engineer for aircraft parts, which required running simulations and sifting through mounds of output data. One day, I got fed up and went to town, writing and improving scripts to parse the data for my coworkers and myself. To be honest, it was the most enjoyable part of the job. I wrote dozens of scripts, at least ten of which were used daily. And then the pandemic hit.
Aircraft travel fell by 99%, and predictably, the aircraft part industry suffered. I was laid off in June 2020. I sent out applications to engineering positions that would allow remote work while also exploring how I could progress my education. I considered trying for a Master’s in mechanical engineering, but at some point, I saw an ad for a programming boot-camp. It was like a light bulb exploded in my head – programming was a skill I already was nurturing, something that I enjoyed, and a career that was more likely to offer remote work positions. A quick search led me to this post-bacc program, for which I was accepted for the Fall 2020 term.
Now and Later
Luckily, in April 2021, I received a job offer for a remote engineering position. I’ve been working full time and taking classes part-time ever since. With the end of the OSU program approaching, I almost don’t know what I’m going to do with all the free time that I’m about to have. More importantly, I’m looking forward to seeing what I do with the degree. I’ve mostly been looking for software engineering positions, but I’ve also been looking at some other positions a bit outside of my comfort zone. Who knows? Maybe I’ll find something else that I unexpectedly enjoy doing.
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