The not so simple decision of majoring in computer science.
I graduated high school as a straight-A student with a GPA of 4.16, advanced classes, and a $5,000 per year scholarship. I was going to go to college to become an engineer, graduate in four years, and land a job with a fairly high salary immediately afterwards. I was a motivated and hard working youg adult, and I knew exactly what I was going to do with my future. Unitl I didn’t.
I ended up just going through the motions in my first three semesters of college. The only thing I had really accomplished was checking off the boxes next to my graduation requirements. Strangely, the one class that had captivated me was an introductory programming class taught in C. It wasn’t even that exciting of a class, everything we did was texted based. But there was something about coding that intrigued me. There wasn’t much thrill in sitting in front of a computer and typing arbitrary letters, numbers, and words for hours. No, it was the process of coding, the trial and error, the freedom to create, and the magical result of what you coded - what you created.
This was something I was able to envision myself doing for a living. I was truly excited about learning and doing more with programming, so I made a bold switch to computer science without further hesitation. The possibilities were now endless. I could pursue artificial intelligence, web development, even cyber security. I was not yet sure where I would go within the field, but I was sure of one thing - I am a gamer at heart.
I have been an avid gamer since I was two years old. To this day I continue to play a variety of video games in my spare time, and like any long time gamer I have visions of magnificent games that I feel would be fantastic to play. Learning how to code would finally enable me to bring these games, worlds, and stories to life so that others can enjoy them as well. Becoming a game developer is my primary goal as far as my career goes at this moment. However, game design can be quite the competitive field nowadays making it a bit of a hit or miss career, but one of the beauties of computer science is that there is always another discipline you can explore.
Believe me, I understand that life does not always work out the exact way you hope, which is why I am not restricting myself to only game design work. In order to gain more experience outside of the classroom, I joined a data visualization research lab. I didn’t even know that much about data visualization prior to joining the lab, but I have learned much about advanced systems and applications since joining. Some of which I can actually apply to game design.
Like I said before, there are endless opportunities even for those studying and working in fields other than computer science. It’s up to you to go out there and take full advantage of the opportunities you are given. You never know when something you may have never even heard of before can be helpful in achieving your goals.
