When I was 7 years old, my parent bought the first computer to our house. For me, this giant machine is so amazing. It showed me so many things, and brought me so much fun when I clicked on different icons. Since then, an idea came to my mind, which influenced me a lot and guided me into the software programming field: “I want to create my own icon!”
As I grew up, I learnt that it is not only a simple icon, but also a huge amount of coding behind it. To be prepared for this career before I attended Penn State, I took a simple programming class in my high school. I learnt to use Qbasic to perform 2D graphics and develop arcade-style game. However, those techniques are out of date for a long time. To enter this career, I need to learn more programming languages, such as C, C++, and Java. Also, I’m expected to master them and understand the concept of how to apply them in real life cases. To accomplish these tasks, I believe taking relevant courses is not enough. I need to practice them in real cases. So, in the past two years, I had done a website maintenance internship, and involved in some game developments, which brought me many valuable experience for my career.
For computer science major students, we could almost apply for every companies which works with computers. For me, since I’m interested in game development, I might apply for some game companies, such as Blizzard Entertainment, and Riot Game. To get a job, the most fundamental responsibility for you is to make sure your code is working correctly. During the first or two years of employment, I would like to finish some basic programming and testing with my teammates, in order to be more familiar with real world case programming. In addition to our formal education, I think we should have some degrees or understanding in mathematics. Even though you don’t have to obtain any formal certifications, from my personal experience, understand some concepts of mathematics will be very helpful.
In computer science field, innovation is the main culture of our profession. In the modern life, the updating speed of information technology is incredible. This situation makes our culture so unique. To fit the culture, it is important to have a solid knowledge background. We should be very creative through the whole career life. Usually, beginning software engineer will test programs. As they gain experience (likely 1 to 2 years), they may advance to design software. Those who have great organizational skills may become project manager. To learn more about our career, we could read some relevant journals, such as International Journal of Computer Vision, and research the news or activities of relevant association, such as Association of Computing Machinery.
Also, we care about our salaries. By researching the computer engineering salary and potential salary, “a new college graduates can even an average salary range of $56,000 to $71,000 per year.” For software engineer, our starting salary is $59,800. After five years of service, this number might be twice up to $102,000. The maximum salary we could earn is about $134,780.
For our major, the industry focuses more on extending the utility and efficiency performance of new products. Those trends will affect your job research directly. For example, from our industry leader company Apple, they update the iOS operation systems to a new version every single year. Recently, they also released iPhone 6 and iWatch, which obtain more powerful efficient performance and smart operation system. Now, Apple is growing bigger and bigger, and they are looking for people who can develop high performance application system. In my opinion, in order to be hired, I should be able to follow the current industry trends, and focusing the specific skills which fit the current demand. I believe that everything I have done so far is just the beginning of my career. To achieve success, there is a long way to go.