I began my journey into computer science out of the sole purpose of earning the appropriate education that could provide me with a career that has a good outlook for job opportunities and sufficient salary.
In the middle of my gap year, I decided to research distance learning degrees offered at Leeward Community College. ICS was about 80% online. I also browsed through the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics to find out a specialization, software development was the winner.
By now you must be thinking that I have no passion for computer science and I am only looking to go into a career that will provide me financial security.
This is not entirely the case. Yes, I went into computer science for financial stability. However, I stayed and worked hard through two years of college because I keep falling in love with the computer science courses I am required to take.
ICS 111, Introduction to Computer Science I, is what kept me pursuing this pathway. This course is where I learned Java coding. The first programming assignment I completed was simply to display a message, “Hello World!”. Every single time I finish a program and I see the end result, I am overwhelmed with accomplishment and I would like to feel like that every day. A career in computer science will do that. Although I spend hours debugging and attempting to find the right solution, it is always worth it when the program finally runs successfully.
Aside from programming, I enjoyed many other information and computer science courses such as ICS 129: Introduction to Databases and ICS 270: Systems Analysis.
ICS 129 got me interested in databases. I like improving my organizational skills and databases remind me of that, also seeing the backend of a database and how information is stored intrigues me and kind of wants me to learn more through advanced courses.
ICS 270, however, is more of the management and analysis side of creating systems and software. This course was designed to teach students how to use tools to analyze, design, develop, test, document and implement a system. Overall, I have many interests that I wish I could pursue all at once and these are just the top few.
If I could follow all of my passions at once, I would, but for now my focus is mainly software development. One of my main goals is for this subject is to eventually expand my list of programming languages. So far I am up to Java, C/C++, and currently working on JavaScript.
I would also like to experience the chance to use my knowledge in a workplace setting. While I have previously worked in helpdesk troubleshooting, it would be more useful to me to work in a software development team or something similar.