As I described in my previous post, most of my programming experience during the high school years came from Zombie:Reloaded, a game plugin. Senior year rolled around and I needed to decide on a major. I knew that computers were my passion, but I didn’t know what field of computer science I wanted to focus on. I knew I liked game programming, but that’s all. I didn’t have a clear picture of what I liked and didn’t like about computer science. I contemplated the many computer-related majors: computer science/games, computer science/business, computer engineering, computer science, the list goes on. I decided to go with the computer engineering major. I did this because computer engineering encampasses all that computers have to offer – software AND hardware.
After two years of computer engineering and registered for my first semester junior year, I realized that I absolutely hated the hardware aspect of computer engineering. Very tedious low-level work that doesn’t yield a useful product by itself (at least not practically). Hardware engineering is a very important field nonetheless, but as far as my interests go, it doesn’t quite make the cut.
After this epiphany, I decided that I definitely wanted to pursue a career in software engineering, so I immediately switched my major to Computer Science. But wait, what field of software engineering? Artificial intelligence, graphics, simulations, security, networking, games, etc. I have no idea. And I’m still trying to decide.
I hope to intern at the USC Health Sciences campus on a cancer cell simulation project this summer, still waiting to hear back, wish me luck!
andrewborba 