While my previous post focused on curiousness as an engineer, the ability to be an open-minded one is equally as important. The two traits are closely related, and I agree with the delineation between then as laid out by the London School of Economics.
Individuals who are ‘open to experience’ are defined as those who love being ‘in the moment’ and learning from situations which are not necessarily associated with achievement. In contrast, people who are ‘intellectually curious’ have a love for academic knowledge, intellectual pursuits and abstract ideas.
Openness to experience trumps intellectual curiosity for learning, London School of Economics and Political Science, 2017 – Original Article
Applying this definition to my experience in the program, it took openness to explore a new career of CS when I was stuck in my previous Healthcare career after deciding medical school was not for me. It took openness to consider my past and give Computer Science a shot, even to enroll in some Community College courses prior to OSU. I was challenged to open myself to apply to jobs that may not be what I initially thought about when starting this career change off. Each course introduced new subfields within Software Engineering that I can get interested in, and would not have been aware of or considered had I not signed up for the course.
I came into this program with aspirations and expectations of getting a “prestigious” or “highly sought after” job, and ultimately still have a desire to do so, but it took some harsh openness to look at myself objectively and accept that my LeetCoding skills are not there yet. I believe this is better than somehow “faking” my way into a great engineering role but not actually having the skills to back it up, a huge fear of mine. And it is because of this openness to examine my weaknesses, I am driven to improve. Openness is not strictly applied to “good” scenarios or situations, and I believe I am ultimately better off being open to both gliterry and unsavory aspects of my existence within (and outside of) this career.
The way I distinguish this openness from curiosity is that my openness to new experiences is operating on a higher, more meta level, while curiousness is operating within the experience I have already made myself open to. One reason I am becoming a software engineer is because the subject matter of the field itself benefits those that are intellectually curious. Openness allowed me to explore new opportunities, but it is the intellectual curiosity that usually dictates practical success in a program such as this. I managed to earn good grades and take electives of Cloud Development, Networking, and am currently taking Mobile Development. I learned about working in a true dev environment in my internship this past summer. My current Capstone project involves making a bot in Microsoft Teams using Typescript to automate Office Hours. In my free time I am also working through practical skills gained from a free MIT course. These examples, among other skills, hackathons, and projects I’ve involved myself in all came from being curious of what being a student in the program and field has to offer – I had no prior experience or knowledge of the material or its difficulty beforehand.
I mention these examples only to show my curiosity and not to show that I am a blueprint of what a successful student in this program is, because there is much more that I can improve upon. Frankly, I am actually working on accepting that I am a greatly average Software Engineer as it currently stands. I’ve met so many productive future colleagues that could code circles around me, my day-to-day time management can get better, and I already mentioned the LeetCode. I am only now learning that grades really do not matter, its what you know and your skills (coding but also thinking algorithmically to solve problems, LeetCode or project or job task). To accept this takes openness – this honest assessment allows for a clear way forward. It allows me to clearly manage expectations of myself, set goals, and be open to when things may not go exactly as I imagined.
So go, be open to anything being a Post-Bacc CS student has to offer! It is from this mentality that you will succeed in this program. It is how you will rapidly gather both academic and experiential knowledge within a two year window to make it out the other side successfully transitioned. Be open to making mistakes in your code editor, in your interviews, and throughout your day, it really is the fastest way to learn! I wish you all the best!
