My time in ICS has been an unforgettable experience. As a senior in Computer Engineering, I was absolutely blind-sided by enjoyment that I had seldomly experienced in my previous CENG courses. ICS 314 welcomed me into the ICS community with open arms and managed to breathe new life into my education, unlocking a passion for software engineering that I never knew I had.
To say that the past three and half semesters of online learning has been difficult would be an understatement. It hasn’t even been a full two years since UH Manoa’s switch to the virtual realm, but it has felt like I have aged five since we were last in a physical classrooom. Throughout a majority of the pandemic and even now, I’ve felt lost. School was there just for me to complete my degree, I wasn’t really learning anything… online learning had me mentally checked out. But it was too late to quit, I was too far into my degree to just throw it all away, so I forged on. I had no goal in mind other than just completeling my degree, but the abyss that is post-college life scared me.
As I continued my trek, it was on to this semester. I entered ICS 314 not knowing what to expect, and immediately I am greeted by this old dude with a cool beard. That old dude, Dr. Phillip Johnson became someone that I respected more and more as the semester went on. From the first day I could tell that he had a passion for not only teaching and software engineering, but also learning new things. This was made apparent by the way ICS 314 was run, it shifted from the traditional exam heavy format of a college course in favor of daily low-risk assignments/quizzes that challeneged you to learn the material and not just save an answer key to your brain.
As the semester progressed I became more and more fond of software engineering, from learning JavaScript to HTML and CSS to the React framework to the culmination of it all in Metoer. This was the first time in a while that everything in a class just “clicked”, and I realized that it was because I found my passion. I was able to use what I learned to write code to that would solve actual real-world problems and not just arbitrary problems from a textbook. Beyond programming, I learned about project management techniques such as issue driven management where you break everything that needs to be done into separate parts or issues and merge the ideas later down the line. This all showed me the reach that I could potentially have as a software engineer, I just need to go out and get it.
Overall, ICS 314 has shown me a life beyond the classroom and a passion that I never knew I had. I will forever cherish what I’ve learned here and hope to put it to good use in whatever internship/job is (hopefully) next for me. To the ICS community, y’all are pretty great, thank you for welcoming me with open arms, I’ve really enjoyed my time here and I’ll see you next time for ICS 414.