The Journey Thus Far
Initial University Years
I’d technically started my college journey in high school, taking a few courses that enabled me to graduate with some of my general education requirements out of the way. This time, however, is also where I’d formed a poor habit of not taking my education seriously, often procrastinating on assignments or not doing the best work that I could. I still graduated as a member of the National Honor Society and top ten percent of my class, but I could (and should) have done better.
My initial years of college also were not the best—I’d failed a few courses and had to retake them. Additionally, I’d changed my major at one point, fed up with the business courses that my Computer Information Systems degree required, wanting instead to focus more on programming. There were cyclical periods of time in which I’d do well, and then poorly again, still struggling with my ill-formed habits from high school and finding myself unable to communicate my struggles to my professors, who I’d often avoid so as to not have to admit that I was struggling. I’d also not take advantage of the resources that were made available to me, such as tutoring, and would instead try to figure things out on my own or accept that I’d fail. This in turn would worsen my anxiety, depression, and self-esteem issues. As such, in the Spring of 2021 I snapped and opted instead to take a break from college, thinking that I could work as an apprentice electrician in the meantime.
Towards the end of that spring, I applied for my local IBEW’s apprenticeship program through the local JATC. I was accepted and was to start working over the summer. As a result, I’d wanted to drop my courses, but was unaware that “dropping out” of college would enable me to drop my courses without the hit to Texas’s six-drop rule. I’d instead opted to fail my courses, thinking that I’d be able to retake them later. Looking back, I wish that I’d opted instead to speak with my advisor about my options, but at the time I was feeling too anxious to do so.
After a long summer working with the looming threat of working 6-7 days a week, I’d decided to return to college, finding myself with some renewed motivation to do well. Things, however, did not go as planned, with me getting COVID at the start of the semester, leaving me to miss important classes. Once more, I started slipping and was afraid to reach out. As such, I failed.
This time, however, was different. That fall semester I was already on academic probation as a result of my spring performance, and the failure I’d received that semester put me on academic suspension. I’d felt low. I’d tried to better myself, and yet I still failed. I’d felt like that could be the end of my college journey, and potentially my career as a software developer.
Community College
Unable to return to TAMU-SA for a semester, I worked on myself and my mental health. I’d started speaking with a doctor about my issues, getting myself the help I needed. Additionally, I knew that I wanted to return to TAMU-SA to finish my degree, but I also knew that I needed to prove myself. As such, I opted to enroll in a local community college, San Antonio College, to retake Calculus II over the summer. I also submitted an appeal to TAMU-SA to be reinstated, which was later accepted.
The course I took at SAC spanned the length of just over a month, requiring me to report daily for a 3-hour lecture and then spend the rest of the day studying and working on assignments. This was a challenge and I’d drawn near to cracking once more when one aspect of the course that I’d done well in the first time around, partial fractions, was not clicking for me. My mom had convinced me to try a tutor and after a single session I’d understood where I was getting stuck and thus was able to complete the course with an A. Finally, I’d proven to myself that I could do well—that I could succeed. Moreover, I’d also found a new appreciation for mathematics, which I’d previously despised.
Better yet, I was also accepted back into TAMU-SA, and was thus able to return to my degree program starting during their summer II semester.
My Return to TAMU-SA
I’d returned to TAMU-SA with a renewed sense of purpose. I’d wanted to do well and prove to myself that I could succeed. I was thankfully able to take a Web Development course that summer, performing well and getting yet another A.
The next semesters also went well, with me applying myself, keeping on top of assignments and completing them as early as possible, reaching out if I needed help. I’d also upped my note-taking game, opting to take notes in using NeoVim and storing my notes and assignments in a private GitHub repository. My assignments were also being completed using LaTeX, which I’d found to be a great way to keep my work organized and legible—something that I believe my professors appreciated.
I’d also started to get involved with the university, joining the ACM chapter and taking part in their events and workshops. Then with the summer 2023 term I took a course in Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence during which our final project involved creating a neural network to determine whether or not a given string of text could be used for a SQL injection attack. This project ended up being part of my professor’s research, with him reaching out to me to ask if I’d be willing to contribute my solution to a paper he was working on. I’d agreed, and thus my name was added to the paper as the second author. Better yet, he also asked me to aid him in future research, which I will hopefully be doing this spring now that the NSF grant he’d applied for has been approved.
This past fall semester I spent acting as my ACM chapter’s Logistics Officer, assisting them with the vacant position after the previous holder left. As an officer, I:
- Helped plan and execute my university’s first 24-hour hackathon, for which
there were attendees from several universities across Texas.
- Acted as a member of the Web Team for the hackathon, helping them build and maintain the hackathon’s website. I mainly assisted with helping others understand and get up and running on the codebase (which was forked from gh:acmutd/hackportal and is a template Next.js application featuring Firebase / Firestore integration for storing user and event data) in addition to creating an endpoint and admin page to facilitate the easier view of user check-in data to various panels and events.
- Hosted a panel on Basic Web Development, covering the basics of HTML and CSS in the development of a simple portfolio page for a developer. This panel also served as a primer for the panel that immediately followed mine in which one of your professors covered APIs and how to use / consume them, both in terms of web APIs and code libraries. Attendance for my panel was roughly 15-20 people.
- Triage-d and fixed an issue with the website during the event in which, due to the poor implementation of calls to our Firebase from the forked code that we did not have time to fix, I identified that we had exceeded the free plan and was able to resolve the issue through adding a payment source. I notated the incident and recommended that for the next time we host a hackathon that the website be one which is developed by us and uses caching and other techniques to ensure the minimal number of calls to the backend are made.
- Hosted the same Web Development panel for my ACM charter, covering nearly the content and this time boasting an attendance of nearly 30 students. A survey was performed after the workshop for which I was rated 4.7.
- Assisted with planning and coordinating travel to external events, such as HackUTD at UT Dallas, by assisting with the procurement of lodging and other necessities.
While I did greatly enjoy my time acting as an officer, I ultimately did not run for election in any other position during our December elections mainly because being elected would mean that once I graduate in the spring I would create a vacancy. Instead, I opted to let new officers be elected so that they may continue to grow as individuals and make the program even better than it is currently.
The Present and Future
I am now nearing my final semester of my undergraduate studies with only a three courses left to take. I am also working as a student worker for my university’s IT department as a web developer, which I am enjoying for the most part. There is, of course, the feeling of impostor syndrome that I am struggling with, but I am trying to work though it.
There was the consideration of perusing graduate school so that I may continue research in areas of computer science such as programming language design and / or artificial intelligence and machine learning. However, there was no time to enact such a plan, being that the urge to do so became strongest over the winter break and thus provided little time to obtain references and write a proper statement of purpose, among other things. Perhaps some day I will look back into graduate schooling, but in the meantime I intend to carry out my own private research and work toward getting a good development job.
On that note, I would like to assert that I am unsure of the specific job I would love to attain, save for that I would much rather it be one for which I am creating new features rather than maintaining legacy codebases with little- to-no room for innovation and “fun”. Working as a student worker for the Web Team at my university has helped me to see this since many days are spent doing menial tasks or waiting for tickets to come in—something that I hope to avoid in the future.
Regardless of what happens and what options I pursue, I am confident that I will be able to find a job that I enjoy and that I will be able to grow as a developer and as a person, overcoming mental hurdles.