Going to college, I aimed to find a study that is both interesting and challenging to me. I began my journey hoping to find a career in STEM, however, I wasn’t sure in which specific study I wanted to get my degree.
My first experience with programming was through a class called “Programming for Engineers”. The class had focused on the programming language C. Although it is a class intended for students to learn without prior knowledge or experience, I felt that the teaching structure did not allow for my potential as a beginner to be reached.
Before taking that class, I had focused on the math and chemistry aspect of STEM, but not the computer science part of it. While my first experience with programming may have not been the greatest, I found it interesting and thought I would give it another try.
I decided to apply for a student job at Leeward Community College Test Center where Test Center student-employees, who are able to work more closely with Help Desk student-employees during this time, get to gain troubleshooting experience and are predisposed to the IT side of things.
My coworkers consisted of business, cyber-security, MIS and computer science majors. The degree that stood out to me was MIS. Working with an MIS major, I was able to discuss and ask questions about what it was.
It became clear that computer science and its related fields is diversly applicable and represents a wide, secure future job market. As I have learned throughout the Covid-19 pandemic, we are only going to continue to rely further on technology. If it something that is a big part of everyday life, it would be useful to make an effort understand it.
In the beginning of my journey, I would have never thought that a degree that integrated both business and technology at was available at Manoa. It seems to have the challenges of a STEM major and the practicality of business and computer knowledge, and for those reasons, I am pursuing this route.