During this past week I delved deep into my mobile app project, which required some significant research to supplement my current, novice level mobile dev skillset. I spent hours learning about working with Firestore and how to interact with the database to retrieve any relevant data. I learned several quirks about the Dart programming language regarding asynchronous functions, which were very unintuitive and at first frustrating. I hit several speedbumps that I didn’t expect, regarding aspects I believed would be simple to implement, but on the flip side, I cruised through several of my tasks with relative ease. To summarize, I had a very familiar, run of the mill week of programming. Expectations are never reality when coding. The parts you anticipate being challenging are often defeated with ease, while unseen, lurking challenges leap out of dark like a predator ambushing its helpless prey.

I managed to meet most of designated tasks, but fell short on a few, while also being forced to implement aspects I had set for future weeks. This week gave me a sense of what sitting in the role of software engineer will actually feel. Although my mindset has been shifting over the weeks towards that of a professional, this week triggered some alarms. I am approaching the midpoint in this final semester, which means in a short 5 weeks, I will be a certified computer science degree holder. This also means that I will be at the point to start thinking about applying to actual professional positions. Following this logic train led to me to realizing that I am not even remotely prepared for the interviewing process.

With this terrifying revelation at hand, I reached out to a friend who already went through this a few years ago. A while back we had discussed a friendly competition where we would each tackle the same LeetCode problems, using our preferred language (Python for me, C++ for him) and compare our approaches. This was put on the backburner as he got married and I began a full time job alongside school. Well, I reissued the challenge this week and we are going to begin very soon, hopefully immediately after the midpoint project assignments are due. He also offered to guide me through the interview process and even act out a few mock interviews. My mindset has officially shifted towards a more professional than student view and my excitement can hardly be contained.