My Aspirations for Software Engineering
04 Sep 2016
Software Engineering is both a class and a topic that I’m excited to get into. Honestly, I don’t really know what “software engineering” is, as it seems pretty general. However, I’m eager to learn and truly understand professional software development/engineering. I would like to diversify my skillset, and having knowledge in this topic is crucial to my future. I aspire to work in cybersecurity, and I need to do exceedingly well in software engineering in order to secure my own future in such a career. Analyzing the software and code to find and exploit vulnerabilities is necessary for computer security. If I can’t even do well in engineering my own software, how would I be able to attack or defend someone else’s?
Some skills I hope to develop in this course are the extensive usage and knowledge of git and JavaScript. I don’t know much about either, but understanding how to use git directly from a CLI can be useful and convenient as opposed to being forced to interact with a GUI and the GitHub website. I would like to learn JavaScript because it is a versatile and functional language. I’ve never really interacted with it, and I’ve heard some pretty bad things about it (it’s buggy, slow, and unstructured), but I’d like to experience it for myself and develop my own opinions. I also believe that JS would be beneficial to my work at DevLeague, as I could lead a web application development course, or at least assist in curriculum development.
Another experience that I know would be beneficial to my future is working in teams to develop the software for our projects. In the professional world, you usually have to work in groups and so far, my experiences in ICS have been somewhat solitary. The teamwork that will go into the projects will be an invaluable experience and prepare me for my future in computer science, but I am personally not a social person. I don’t like the idea of working in groups, especially if I can’t choose them, but I know I have to suck it up and deal with it in order to be as effective as possible in the professional world.