Week 5: The Interview

     I selected a person named John, a recently retired senior software engineer, specifically because he is a family friend of my mother's, whom she has known her whole life. I naturally thought that this would be the perfect person to interview. During university for a Bachelor's in Computer Science, John took the search for internships seriously. After a while, he found one at a small startup, which would ultimately be his first real-world experience in the field, where, as he remembers, he only did maintenance and bug fixes of the code. Upon graduating and with real-world experience, his job search went relatively smoothly, where he was hired with knowledge of skills in Python, JavaScript, and mainly, C++. His first job after graduation was mostly front-end website development, where he built on already existing code, fleshing out various features. After talking about his career life, I then asked about emerging trends within the industry, and he quickly replied that artificial intelligence is the most prominent technology that is shifting the dynamic of computer science and many other industries. He told me that I should begin integrating AI in my workflow as soon as possible, if I have not already, and also told me not to rely too much on AI, because it can prevent you from learning properly, while also saying that using AI responsibly is the best learning and development tool that exists. After hearing his thoughts on AI, I asked what advice and skills would you give to students that you believe are the most important attributes to bring to the field? He prominently emphasized that technical skills, while obviously a necessity, what is of equal importance, or more important, is the individual's ability to adapt and learn new technologies and concepts. He also said that communication is an important factor, as nothing is done alone while creating large-scale software. Upon that, I believe I learned everything I needed to know about how John has progressed in his professional life and what I need to do to further prepare myself for the life ahead of me.

    This experience has significantly increased my knowledge of what I need to work on and how I could go about searching for a position within the field with the necessary skills and attributes. I have a willingness to always learn and adapt, so that much is covered with me, though my communication skills definitely need improvement, which is a reason this course is so important to take, especially for computer science students who generally lack communicatory skills. I plan to use this recently gained knowledge to prepare and better apply myself for the future academic journey, and then afterwards, my future professional journey. I plan to apply this knowledge by avidly searching for an internship as well as taking comprehensive notes and learn the ins and outs of concepts in computer science. I also plan to work on my own side projects throughout my academic journey while doing coursework to further refine my learned skills.