A Lonely Year Online Led Me to Software Engineering
21 Jan 2020
Then . . .
Locked in my room, trapped at my desk, thousands of miles away from my friends and classmates, I stared at my laptop unseeingly. I knew the clock was ticking down and each second passing was a precious one, but I could not help my eyes glazing over and my mind wandering. Back in high school, I had dreamed of being able to stay at home and still progress my education, in my pajamas, at my own computer – I just knew it would be so much better than having to wake up early and trudge through rain or sleet to reach classrooms I did not want to enter anyway. Tired teachers, tired students, and tired topics led me to struggle through each day and rejoice in the few online classes I did manage to take. A fully online class schedule would be even better, right?
Now . . .
Yet the last year has been a hard one, steeped in loneliness. Perhaps it was my own fault for choosing a school so far away from my hometown; after all, of course I would feel distant looking over the many miles between myself and my university. Still, how could I have seen what was coming? I doubt many people would have guessed back in 2018 that the start of our Roaring ‘20s would be a lockdown. But acknowledging the futility of regret did not change my reality of frustrating, inefficient online courses. To my complete surprise, I found myself hating a fully online class schedule. I missed the social opportunities, getting to know my classmates and professors face-to-face, and even how well I had learned back in physical classrooms. I became as scatterbrained as our new puppy, unable to focus on a lecture when I had YouTube, Netflix, and a library of video games a few clicks away.
In the future . . .
Thus has begun a new interest in software engineering. My problem with many of my online classes was that they felt simultaneously too slow, as professors struggled to adapt to complicated course management systems, and too fast, as modules stacked up due to my newfound inability to self-pace. Much of what we used did not feel optimized for its purpose, and could even be more of a hindrance than a help in learning. My goal is to one day become a competent enough software engineer that I can help design a new gamified way of learning online that is more engaging and fulfils what I dreamed online schooling could be. To attain this ambition, I need to hone several skills and develop several more.
I tend to freeze up when asked to think on the spot. To be a successful software engineer, I will need to work on problem-solving on my feet. I will also need to develop critical collaboration skills that I have recently learned I am lacking. I struggle with communicating when under pressure, and currently prefer to retreat into my head and either solve or fail the problem by myself. Obviously, teamwork is a vital skill when talking about large-scale projects with the kind of impact I want to have one day. To help evolve these necessary skills, I look forward to learning more about software engineering and other computer science disciplines.