My First Year In Software Engineering As A Student

To ensure a rewarding career, the importance of education cannot be denied. But talking about studies always freaks up a person's mind. Nevertheless, every student still embarks on this annoying journey to learn, and then earn.

Finding software as a field in-trend with vast scopes offering diverse fields, I opted for it as my major for the bachelor's degree. The only fact I was worried about was my inexperience and lack of technical background in this field. The courses offered in the first semester gave me a sigh of relief, for it was not all technical and computer-based, but a combination including math and humanities courses as well. At this initial stage, the computer courses offered were “Fundamentals of Computer Programming - Python” and “Information & Communications Technology”.

The early days went pretty good as studying in a well-reputed university like NUST gives one the perks of in-depth study from the very beginning and the basics. But a fact became quite evident, the hectic peer pressure. Having some of my classmates pursuing this field for the past 4 years, the notion to excel in a relative grading system competing them gave me shivers. The only option poor me had was to keep my self-confidence alive.



Though all the technical computer-based courses were taught really well and I always had the opportunity to discuss the issues faced individually with the teachers, I could not cope up with the class’ pace.

I soon realized that it was not going to be easy for what technical subjects demand is not just thorough understanding or ground learning, but sound practice.

I took my slow understanding of these subjects as a learning perspective, for I knew I had no idea of what my peers were proficient in. But this fact had nothing to do with my abilities or my morale. All I knew was to practice as much as I could and leave the rest on destiny, though this came out to be the hardest part.

The first semester passed by giving me a decent GPA, but the second semester came up as the real disaster when Java came in, under the object-oriented paradigm. My condition in the very first days was much like out of the frying pan, into the fire.

When studying in a technical field, patience is the key, for haste to learn won’t help, but perseverance will.

It’s a fact that Java as compared to Python is a far more hard and complex language, considering the tiresome syntax and the classes, packages format, still, it’s a language of great importance because of the incredible JVM feature. So, this time I was pretty much geared up for this, which worked out somehow. The OOP concepts appeared to be easy to understand, but the main requirement was practice. But in a semester giving a truckload of burden by offering subjects like Digital Logic Design, Basic Electronics, and Calculus-II, finding time out for practice gets hectic.



So technically speaking, last year, Shaheryar told you why he opted for Software Engineering. Now I am telling about what it feels like to be a Software Engineering student. The fact is that there are different categories of students here: Angels, Hard workers, Amateurs.

Angels are those who grasp every concept as if they have been studying it since they were young. Hard workers are those who understand the concepts through sound practice whereas the Amateurs are those who need help from peers and quite sometime before they understand the concepts to their full extent.

Are you studying SE or CS? Drop your thoughts about your field in the comments.