My Journey

It was around fall of 2020 when my interest in computer science ramped up to something more substantial than reading the intro to “Automating the Boring Stuff with Python” for the 12th time. I had prior exposure, of course, coming from a mechanical engineering degree, I had many encounters with Matlab which, at the time, didn’t exactly rouse my appetite for programming. However, the four years that followed my graduation can be best described as “stagnant”, thus began my search for greener pastures. Programming seeming like the obvious choice to transition to, I thought: it’s in-demand, I already know how a computer works(I was so wrong), and everything I need to know can be learned online(turned out somewhat true). So I began to dig, from tutorial websites, to books, blogs and Youtube videos, I quickly amassed more bookmarked links than actual lines of code written. After a few month of this, I finally acknowledged that while I had the motivation, I needed someone else to provide the directions and discipline, which lead me to this post-bac program.

Fast forward nearly two years, I have grown both in skill and appreciation for many of the underlying technologies I used to take for granted. For this capstone course, I chose projects that primarily fall into two categories. One is full-stack web or mobile applications, in which I hope to expand on my existing skillset learned from databases, web development and mobile from this program. On the other hand, AI/ML, which piques my curiosity, a curiosity that has only grown with the recent proliferation of consumer-oriented AI tools such as Chatgpt. If I get a project in this category I would get to learn something outside my comfort zone, and hopefully unlock some interesting directions for my career.

No matter what project I get, I hope to also gain/hone the soft skills I would need for future jobs. On previous group projects from this program, such as database, and 361/362, I did my best to contribute lines of code, to set our timeline, pitch ideas, schedule meetings, etc. Of course these are small groups where it’s harder to be invisible. In my experience with larger groups I tend to find myself in more passive roles, thankfully that’s not the case in this capstone project.