Author Archives: Joseph Caswell

Perspective

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How’s it going! I decided to take a week off from blogging in the hopes that I could have some newer things to talk about. My team has made some great progress on our application, it’s nice to have confidence that we will be able to get things wrapped up in time. Open ended projects can be hard to put deadlines on, so I’m glad we’re doing well in that regard.

I do also want to say, I’ve really enjoyed working with Flutter. It’s very high pace and interesting with the way widgets work. I would love to work on my own mobile application one day if I get a good idea. The cool thing is that I have confidence that I could do it myself which is huge.

In other more serious news, I am very stressed about the conflict with Russia and Ukraine. Following along with the title of this blog, it really does put things into perspective. We’re so focused on our day to day lives, that we can forget how valuable it is to live in peace. It’s really disappointing that one person can inflict suffering on so many. I hope for the best for the people of Ukraine and hope that this doesn’t escalate into anything further.

In other news, I got a team match call with Google, scheduled for today! It’s in a domain that I don’t have experience in (cloud), but I’m eager to learn and hope that the manager likes me. In some ways it’s more stressful than the actual onsite interview because you don’t know if you passed. Right now I’m so close, I just have to be a good fit for the team.

There’s just been so much on my plate lately and I know I’m not the only one. The quarterly system can be super hectic. One of my teammates is also taking 3 classes… while working 20 hours a week! Absolutely crazy, and very impressive as well.

Lastly, I’m not sure if the same person reads each blog, but if so I hope you are doing well, and have a good day!

Getting Stuff Done

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Hello again! To cut right to the chase, since the last blog my group and I have made really great progress on our project. We’ve made good progress on critical aspects of the project, so things are going according to plan so far. For our project, we are making a mobile treasure hunt, that gets users outdoors to explore user created hunts.

For my portion I recently completed, I designed the active hunt screen. Between you and me, it’s the most important part of the app, so it was cool to have that level of responsibility. There are other important pages, but this is the key aspect of the app users will use the most. It has been hard learning Flutter, the learning curve is a bit high, but things are starting to click. It really comes down to knowledge of the widgets, because one might exist that you didn’t even know about!

The concept of stateful widgets has been probably the most complex part. This is when your app updates new information. Flutter re-loads that particular widget to update new information. It became really tricky as you could imagine with implementing a live map that tracks the user’s location and must update at all times. I went with the Google Maps API to assist me, although the documentation is surprisingly scarce. I think it is because Google offers this feature on a lot of different platforms, especially webapps, so Flutter took a bit of a backseat. In that sense it has been difficult learning how it works, so I had to piece things together with guides and videos.

Y’know, that’s kind of what software engineers do though! We figure things out that we don’t know. We know that we can know, if we need to. That’s what I’m taking away from this, and it has helped me gain a lot of confidence going forward. I’m ready to keep tackling more parts of the project. I’m happy with what we have so far.

Things have been hard lately because there is a headcount shortage at Google. A privileged position to be in, I know, but what went from a 99% chance of an offer as it usually is from passing the hiring committee, is now about 50% according to my recruiter and a lot of new graduates hearts will be broken. This has greatly taken away my productivity as I’ve been keeping up with a Discord of students in the same position.

At the end of the day, careers are long and it’s not the end of the world if I don’t get it, but it would be a shame most definitely. Tomorrow I plan to mentally step away from that anxiety and start blazing forward. Every day is a new day, even if you had a lazy day, you can always tackle the next day with full force. Hopefully in the next update I can share good news! For now I need to keep focusing on my project and making a good app.

Halfway There

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It’s hard to believe! I’m about halfway done with my last quarter at OSU. Time really flies when you’re… having fun (sometimes). I’m learning a lot in my classes. I’ve already learned so much about Flutter and building mobile apps. I’m undoubtedly producing some awful spaghetti code, but just being able to get started coding is a huge hurdle, and I will become better over time. It’s a cool feeling because I actually feel confident that I could legitimately build a mobile app on my own if I wanted to.

I’ve said it before, but I do really wish I could take only one or two classes.. I do think I’m doing a little bit of a disservice to myself for not having the time to dive as deep into the material as I want to. But unfortunately real jobs take precedence, and that’s the end goal of a degree, so I digress. I just like learning and I do honor academia.

In other news, I passed the hiring committee at Google which is absolutely insane. Right now there are a lot of students stuck in the team matching phase as Google has had to reevaluate headcount, but it’s pretty close to a surefire offer at this point which is so exciting. If I told myself two years ago I would be working for Google, I would have slapped myself and said I’m crazy. I didn’t even know what Oregon State was 2 years ago. Life really is crazy sometimes.

The stress is definitely ramping up on all aspects of life right now, but I’m here for it, and quite frankly that’s when I produce my best work, which is kind of sad, but also comes in handy as I know I have an extra gear if I need it. Overall I hope to keep making steady progress with my classes and finish OSU with a somewhat memorable bang if our project ends up being successful. Either that or someone steals my Google API key and charges thousands of dollars. We’ll see.

New Tools

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Hello again! It hasn’t been too long since I last posted. So far our project has been moving along nicely. We finalized our project plan, so we have a clear idea of what steps we we have to complete the project going forward. We ironed out some details like what exactly we specifically need to do in each phase of the project. As we go along I’m sure it will be even further refined.

We also are learning new tools like the Flutter SDK and Dart programming language. These are the main tools we will need to code the project. It is always fun to have the opportunity to learn new technologies, and that’s why I love this field. One day I would like to create an app on my own to generate some revenue if I can come up with a good idea. That’s the tricky part.

I also was lucky to be the best man at my friends wedding. He has been my best friend for a long time. I also forgot to mention, I had my birthday recently! I’m 25 now. Point being, it’s definitely a strange time in terms of relationships for my age group. Seeing some friends getting married, and having kids is so new, and still have my other friends who have no intention to get married or have kids anytime soon.

I’m somewhere in the middle. Of course transitioning careers leaves little time for dating, but I do like the idea of settling down in the next few years. I feel like I’ve just been going to so many places. I went to school in Indiana, had an internship in a different state every Summer. Studied abroad one semester, moved to Charlotte for my first job. Laid off 3 weeks in due to COVID. Moved back home to Florida, then moved back to Charlotte crazily enough for another job. Then once I fully committed to changing careers, my lease expired; I’m now in Florida again for a few months, before I finally choose somewhere to start again.

It’s really been a complete whirlwind in that regard, so I’m looking forward to actually having plans to stay in one place long term and meet some good friends. I’ve also officially wrapped up interview season. It’s truly been “the grind” preparing for them. Many, many hours spent doing leetcode and studying algorithms. In a sick way I’ve come to enjoy it in a sense, they can really act as a nice brain teaser.

Within the next 2-3 weeks I will officially know where I’m headed… it will either be the Bay Area, Salt Lake City, Seattle, or Portland. All really great options, and all very far from home. Being far from home has never been too much of a problem, but this is definitely the farthest I will have lived from Florida. I’m excited though! It’s always a new adventure and a fresh beginning. You can be whoever you want to be.

I also do want to emphasize my appreciation for this program. I’ve said it before, but say 10 years ago I wouldn’t have had these opportunities because online degrees weren’t really a thing. I wouldn’t be able to change careers, because going back in person and quitting my job wasn’t really an option. It was so hard studying and working, but it’s almost over and I’m thankful for the experience.

Making Progress

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Hello again everyone, or rather, to the one TA who is forced to read my blog (Muahahah). Hope you have been doing well since the last one. Since the last update a few things have happened.

My group and I started to formulate our plan to attack the project. We decided we would definitely like to start coding earlier than required. We laid out our team requirements, and so now we have a solid foundation.

Our next meeting, which coincidentally is today, will be going over our UI preliminary design. I decided to take it upon myself to use this neat software called UXPin. It was a super cool way to do some sketches of what our app could look like.

Here is an example of what I came up with for the opening screen

Our app will be a scavenger hunt-esque app, which allows people to get out of the house and go on cool adventures. The hunts will be created by other users, so overall it should be a fun time.

As far as life goes, I did have the exciting news of receiving an offer from Qualtrics, with the location being in Provo, Utah, south of Salt Lake City. I am very happy with it! Next week I should hear back about whether I passed the hiring committee at Google, and I will be doing the final round interviews at Microsoft.

It’s crazy because as an outsider it may seem like I’m doing something special. But to be honest with you, I’ve just been fairly above average in my classes, nothing really that special about me. A lot of it is luck, but I also found you get more lucky when you work harder. There’s nothing that really separates me from other great students besides just preparing for interviews!

It’s an exciting time for me, I would be happy to go over my experiences to those who are interested when it’s all said and done. I’m just anxious to really find out where I will definitely end up, and just to get to that point. I love OSU, but also we have already done full degrees previously, so school has really mentally gone to the end for me. I’m ready to be an engineer. Oh also, it’s getting cold again.

The Beginning of the End

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Me at a delicious food court in Charlotte, NC called Optimist Hall
Me at a delicious food court in Charlotte, NC called Optimist Hall

Today marks the beginning of my last semester here at Oregon State University. It’s definitely a feeling of mixed emotions. Everything really came and went so fast the past year and a half. This blog will focus on my random shower thoughts and more importantly, my capstone design project.

A little about me; I’m from Tallahassee, Florida and attended Purdue University. From there I graduated in December 2019 with a B.S. in civil engineering. I really enjoyed the challenge of Purdue, the concepts, theory, and research really interested me. The day to day life of a civil engineer however… not so much.

I knew, probably for a while, it wasn’t what I was truly passionate about. I decided to take some programming classes my senior year because I had a hunch I would like it, and of course I ended up loving it. I realized coding was something I could see myself doing for my career, and something I could see myself enjoying most importantly.

That’s what lead me to Oregon State. I was graduated, I had a big boy job and bills to pay in a new city. I needed a way to continue working, but also earn another degree. Oregon State was perfect for me in that regard. So I started here in May 2020.

Since then, everything came fast. I completed 2 quarters before landing an internship with Walmart Labs. I was also a TA for our data structures course. Last quarter, Fall of 2021, was possibly the most challenging yet. I was taking 2 hard courses, but also spent every other second preparing for interviews I had with companies like Facebook, Roblox, Google, and Microsoft.

Going into software engineering certainly can be a grind if you want it to be. It takes a lot out of you if you want to work for a top company. I chose to max myself out in that way. I wanted to, because one day I want to have a family and provide for them the best I can. I also know that once I am settled into a new role, I can take the foot off the gas a bit. Right now I’m fortunate to be in a spot to where I can push myself.

I’m taking 3 courses to finish as I have a offer in hand, meaning I must finish these to start. It will be a tough quarter, and honestly I would love to take one class at a time if I could, I really do think that’s the best way to soak the material.

I’m lucky to have found a group, and right now we have our sights set on developing a mobile app; preferably a game. I’m excited because this will allow me to learn new technologies, and end up with a pretty solid resume item.

As a software engineer, I definitely have a lot to learn and I think Capstone will be a great step forward for learning some cool new technologies.

Other than that, I am truly excited about what the future holds. I am very thankful that Oregon State exists, it really changed my life and allowed me to pursue my dreams. If this was just 10 years ago, I wouldn’t have this option. I will have more blogs to come, some focused on free thoughts, and others specifically for the Capstone project. Excited to share with whomever is reading!