As a junior majoring in ICS at University of Hawaii at Manoa, I am unhappy to announce that I haven’t really made much strides into dipping my toes into my chosen field of studies. After spending a year of fulfilling general education requirements and getting over personal turmoil, I found out the educational landscape of my major has changed. This discovery made me feel very out of date and inadequate, and even though a year of absence has muddied my vision and motivation, I am still very interested in staying on this path, given that I still have interests in software engineering with skills and experiences that I hope to develop in the future.
I was first introduced to video games as a kid, at about 4-6 years old, and ever since I was captivated by the potential of storytelling video games are capable of. I could draw, I could write, but for the longest time, I had wanted to make a proper video game. As I got older, I found more opportunities to learn how to achieve that goal, which led me to discovering programming and the broader computer science field. Indie game development is very much an interest of mine, I just haven’t made a full commitment to it yet.
Another thing that has interested me in the past year while stuck in limbo is statistics and how to interpret and display them through software engineering. I keep myself updated on certain esports, or competitive video game scenes, and one thing that piqued my interest was the prevalence of statistic pages, specifically for player and team performances. One example of this is the website HLTV.org whose statistics are taken from professional Counter-Strike: Global Offensive matches. Taking statistics from the match servers, they calculate a general player rating based on a couple of statistics they they deem important. HLTV.org even keeps track of player performance while matches are going on, which personally improves the viewing experience. Even though the example centers itself on the professional video game scene, as well as entertainment, I can’t help but feel like a similar approach to extracting and displaying statistics could be implemented in other areas, especially for real-world applications.
In terms of software engineering, I really want to get more experience participating in a project. I feel like a lot of vital skills can be learned by going through the process. It would even be better if I could do it while under the guidance of a mentor. Honestly, I just want to experience software engineering for what it is. I can’t really say what specifically I want to experience, but I really can’t think of anything else I’d rather be doing.