As posted in the homepage, my name is Mario Lopez. I currently work in the medical field specializing in the field of anesthesia as I make the transition to software engineering. I began my engineering journey through a project code named the bionic pancreas through a collaboration between the biomedical engineering department at Boston University and Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH). Intrigued by the ability an engineer has to solve real life problems, I took my first introductory programming course – a course offered in Python. It therefore makes sense that I am most comfortable programming in Python, but have also had the opportunity to program in a variety of different languages. These languages include R, C, SQL, Assembly, Javascript, HTML5, CSS, and Swift.
By going through the computer science program at Oregon State University (OSU), I have gained the ability to pick up new programming languages rather quickly by recognizing overlapping patterns between languages. Each course allowed me to practice and exercise the use of different data structures in order to achieve a given task. Many of these tasks involved working in a team of three to four other students, and through these assignments, I was able to learn alongside my teammates. I gained the ability to communicate and troubleshoot as a team as well as learn to view tasks from a different perspective. As it relates to programming, I was also able to pick up different styles and had several, “aha!” moments when seeing that a certain task could be achieved more efficiently through different pieces of code.
When taking on a computer science degree, many of my friends and family that have tried to code, or have simply seen me take on projects, they can’t help to ask me “How do I do it? How do I manage to stay looking at my screen, which may have several error messages, and not go absolutely nuts?” To them, I say patience, success comes to those with the most patience, patience and optimism. If you truly believe that you have the potential to succeed, then succeed you will. This optimism and patience will often times give you the perseverance needed to not give up. And even if with all the hard work you’ve put in, you still get error messages, then that’s a sign for you to take a break. Take a nap, walk around, and stay away from your integrated development environment (IDE) of choice for some time. You never know when a different strategy will pop into your head, after which you develop a smirk on your face, go back to your computer, and “Cowabunga!” you’ve succeeded yet again.
Now, as it relates to the future, I’d like to complement my newfound engineering abilities with my current knowledge as it relates to the medical field. The recent COVID-19 pandemic has exposed a variety of shortcomings present in the medical field, shortcomings which I intend to ameliorate. But it’s not all about the medical field, as I do have other interests and hobbies that reside outside the operating room. I also have a passion for vehicles and find it intriguing just how much passenger vehicles have evolved as it relates to tech – from automated driving, to safety features such as automated braking, cross traffic safety alerts, pedestrian detection, automated parallel parking, lane keeping assist. Sure, some of these technologies, such as lane keeping assist, aren’t the most optimized, but it’s amazing that they exist. Imagine telling someone with a car from the early 2000s that a car would be able to drive themselves, they would think you’re completely nuts. All of these advancements are amazing, and although we don’t all have flying cars just yet, maybe one day we’ll get there, and it could be one of us that helps us make it a reality.