Post #1 – Introduction

Hello Everyone! My name is Mason Stephenson, I have a bachelors degree in chemical engineering from Oklahoma State University, and currently reside in Oklahoma. I have a 3 year old corgi, and enjoy gardening, kayaking, and pottery. I am eager to shift careers, and finish the post-bacc in computer science.

I went into computer science after graduating in 2020 at the height of the pandemic. Relentlessly applying to engineering positions slowly made me reconsider the career I was already having doubts about, none of the positions made me excited to get. I considered law school but was nervous that I would spend another three years pursuing a career I didn’t fully understand, again. I realized that I enjoyed each programming course I took in high school, and in college, and that could be the pivot I was looking for. I knew computer science was something I would enjoy based on the logic, creativity, and challenge that computer science problems and solutions entail.

One thing lead to another and I ended up in the computer science program at Oregon State University. I knew this was the program and career for me after my first term. I never looked forward to homework in engineering, but over the last 2 years I’ve been eager to start the homework.

I keep a very organized schedule. I like to know when homework is due, and plan out when I will start and estimate when I will finish. I like to take over the role of “planner” in groups, to make sure that deadlines are met. I expect team members to carry their fair share of the workload, but I sometimes have issues staying in my lane, and hill help contribute to teammates work, especially if they are stumped or have interesting problems. There have been a couple of group projects where there was no distinct leadership, or anyone willing to express non-ambiguous opinions. In those situations I don’t mind taking over as a leader to make decisions, rather than waste time playing chicken with who’s most apathetic in the group. Generally, once those groups have decisions made, progress is quickly made.

I had a hard time deciding on projects, some of them are web based, and I would hope to learn more about web development. Specifically, I would like to learn more modern and dynamic interactive features. I’ve also selected some projects that are games. For those projects I hope to learn how to efficiently manage an application that read/writes many files continuously. I would also like insight to story boarding, game development creativity side of things.