Welcome and thank you for checking out my blog! The purpose of this blog is to document my journey through Oregon State’s CS 467 Capstone Project course. I’ll be sharing what goes well, what areas need improvement, neat things I learn along the way, and a (hopefully) amazing final project. But first let me introduce myself and tell you a bit about my computer science journey.
My name is Uriel Rodriguez, but some people call me Rod. I’m in the final quarter of my CS degree at Oregon State and will start working as a software engineer in July. The path life has taken me to get to this point in my career is far from conventional, and I believe it is worth sharing.
As a first-generation college student, my experience during my first degree was incredibly difficult. My limited knowledge of majors and careers led me to graduate with a degree that I wasn’t passionate about. I started working as a substitute teacher after graduation with the intent of becoming a teacher. However, although the experience was incredibly rewarding, I realized that teaching was not the right career for me.
Once the pandemic started and schools closed, I realized it was the right time to pivot and commit to a new career. After researching several areas of interest, I decided to start working on my new goal: become a software engineer.
After further research, I was able to identify three distinct paths to achieve my goal: self-teaching, enrolling in a coding bootcamp, and going back to school. Given that I already had a college degree, albeit one unrelated to computer science, I decided to first pursue the self-teaching route.
I took a couple of days to find resources, made a plan and got to work. Three months later, after countless hours of watching YouTube tutorials, auditing Berkeley’s CS61B course (shoutout to Professor Josh Hug), and building what I believed to be solid projects and a strong resume, I decided to start applying to jobs. Unfortunately, without any formal CS education and no industry experience I was rejected by every software role that I applied for. I realized that it was time to go back to the drawing board and redirect my efforts.
With the support of my amazing wife, I decided the best approach to reach my goal was to go back to school and enrolled at Oregon State. The program helped me land an internship last summer and secure a software engineering role after graduation. I am incredibly grateful to everyone that I have crossed paths with throughout my journey at OSU and I am super excited about the future.
With introductions out of the way, it is time to start building something great. I hope you can join me in this journey.
Thank you for reading and I’ll see you next time.
Rod