It’s seven o’clock in the morning; I roll over to turn off my alarm that is only able to ring because of a program written by some software developer. The alarm is part of an app that is part of my iPhone, which was most probably programmed by some probably overworked Apple software engineers. I read my friends’ text messages — someone (or maybe a whole team) had to program the user interface for text messaging in the iPhone. I turn my laptop on and see Microsoft’s Windows operating system that many, many people worked together to develop. I go into Google Chrome, which required a great amount of work by many Google employees. I open Facebook, Youtube, Skype, Gmail, and various other websites — somebody had to have developed those. Everyday and, for most people living in the US, every minute, we engross ourselves in a bubble of technology, performing most tasks and acquiring most knowledge from some source of technology that required some amount of computing. We’re living in this extremely convenient yet potentially detrimental lifestyle of technological dependency. 

We have all wondered at some point: Is the government actually watching us?; Is the news actually telling us the truth?; Who else can actually see me when I’m video chatting with my friends?; How secure is my online checking account? Cyber crime increases every year and government espionage will be forever active. If someone can program Facebook, then someone can program a way to shut it down. In the world of computing, every program is like a building — constructing it is the hard part, but breaking it is much easier. There is phishing, spamming, fraud, and even cyber terrorism and cyber warfare. In 2012, Zappos.com, LinkedIn, eHarmony, and Wells Fargo have all been cyber attacked. Even with heavy security behind many programs, cyber attackers will eventually find a way through virtually any shield. Security in the web is more of an empty promise. 

And the government — in North Korea, nobody receives access to the world wide web, and everyone is literally brainwashed by false news. In China, Facebook is censored from the internet because the government doesn’t want any potential uprisings (which is ironic because the government was founded on an uprising). Even here in the US, the land of the free, the government can read our text messages, internet history, and emails. Because of computing, real privacy may seem like a bleak idea, and maybe even freedom to attain knowledge on the internet may be compromised in the near future. 

Works Cited: 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_crime

http://courses.cs.vt.edu/cs3604/lib/WorldCodes/10.Commandments.html

http://cs.millersville.edu/~liffick/compchar.html

University faculty members don’t all lecture. Throughout my exploration into their careers and works, they are extremely proactive in their field of interest. Biology professors could be running studies on marine animals while being a lecturer, and computer science professors could be developing software for some experiment while working in UCSD as a professor. They also do lots of work for UCSD that does not involve lecturing; for example, a professor may be coordinating tutor positions for the computer science department or a professor may be managing a department in UCSD. Overall, university faculty members are not what most people would think — they do not just lecture or do research; they can also be really active in their own field of study by working on big projects corresponding to that field. 

A professor I came across, Sergie Belongie, worked on many of different projects and has many different responsibilities. He has worked in UCSD for more than twelve years and next year, he is going to join the faculty at Cornell Tech over in New York City. In his lecturing history, he’s taught mostly upper division courses that mostly relate to computer vision. Projects he has worked on include software that visually recognizes fire and software that monitors animal software. He is a large innovator for technology with his works on innovative software. Based on his brief biography, he is also working on more recognition software that could help homeland security. 

Garrison Cottrell is another professor at UCSD who managed many projects and lectured for many courses. He has a particular interest in cognitive science and building models of cognitive processes. He teaches mainly upper division and graduate courses in cognitive processes for computer science and cognitive science. He also runs a research unit that has a primary interest in researching the cognition processes in animals and humans in order to translate that into software to be used in computers and maybe other equipment. He is also a member of the artificial intelligence group in UCSD. This group conducts lots of theoretical and experimental research into artificial intelligence. 

As we could see from these two professors, they do much more than just lecture. They also conduct many side projects and even facilitate their own lab units. Questions that I do wonder may be: Which experiment that they’ve done in the past contributed the highest impact to their career? What kind of experiments do they expect to see trending the computer science world in the next five years? How busy is the whole process of running an experiment?

I remember asking several friends about their majors, and some of them told me they wanted to study computer science. But when I asked them why, their answers were all the same: “It makes a lot of money.” Then I asked them if they had any programming experience, and they say no. And after that, I ask if they even know what type of classes are in the computer science major — they say no. Of course, many people at this point should know the classes required for computer science. When I decided to pursue computer science, I already knew what I was getting myself into — I have friends and relatives who are software engineers, and I took programming classes as well as learned coding in high school robotics.

But even with my prior knowledge of computer science, I still entered UC San Diego with a wide array of questions, ranging from which classes I should take to what specific careers this major will ultimately lead to. I was definitely surprised by the majors in the computer science department — not just computer science, but BS computer science, BA computer science, computer engineering, and computer science: bioinformatics.  I was even more surprised by the variety of jobs for this major. Computer science majors don’t just graduate and become software engineers; they graduate to become engineers for operating systems, games, apps, rockets, satellites, research, security, and websites. The list of different career paths just keeps going on and keeps increasing every year because of the rapid evolution of technology — many people have already told me how this is the best time to be majoring in computer science. 

In the Q and A session from the last class, I realized all the work computer science majors have to go through. I can’t simply take classes for 4 years, graduate, and then magically get a job (and definitely not a high paying job). I learned that I need to actively try to build that networking web as soon as possible. I could start by trying to become a tutor for an introduction computer science class, then build up into an internship. From there, I could keep building up my resume every year to finally get to that software development job after I graduate (or maybe even before I graduate).

Additionally, I never realized how gruesome the interviewing process is for getting a job in software development. Most jobs just require a resume and an interview (or two) with questions along the lines of “Where do you see yourself in the next 5 years?” For software engineers, interviewers ask complicated questions about coding and logic. The employer wants to see how well someone could actually code and also how well someone could work with the company’s team. 

Even after listening to some extremely helpful people during the presentations, I still wonder about many things for this major. I still don’t know many careers in this field. I still don’t know many tricks to conquer interviews. I still don’t know how to search for all these opportunities to build up my networking system. I’ll form even more questions the later in the school year I go, but fortunately the more I explore and research, the more I’ll discover about this subject. 

Works Cited: 

http://cs.ucsd.edu/ugrad

http://cs.ucsd.edu/node/240

http://cs.ucsd.edu/node/239

When choosing between different universities to attend, one of the largest and most important factors has to be resources. The better college isn’t going to be the one with more prestige, rather it’s the one that is enriched in many different opportunities that will help lead any student to his or her crucial first job — the job that decides his or her next step in building up in that career. 

Over here in UC San Diego, there are masses of opportunities that help nudge any person towards a satisfying career. Ranging from internships to research, UC San Diego supplies students with a vast array of options.

Computer Architecture and Compilers:  In this field of study, the researchers develop new technology such as “GreenDroid” (a processor that dramatically reduces energy consumption). Since these research projects seem quite demanding, they’ll require a student with high expertise in computer science. A third year or up will most likely have a good chance at working in this type of research. This will most certainly be beneficial to anyone’s career since employers will know that he or she helped in very innovative projects that may potentially revolutionize technology at some scale. 

Tutoring: As every computer science student has noticed, our computer labs always have tutors around. According to the computer science and engineering department’s website, a tutor must have at least a 3.0 GPA, be enrolled in CSE 90 the first quarter before being a tutor, and be upper-division standing. I’m going to also add that the tutor should be adept at working with clueless programming students and be very good at coding. This will be extremely beneficial as a stepping stone to higher careers because it shows employers that this student not only knows coding well enough to teach other students, he or she can even convey coding concepts well to other people — communication is an extremely important attribute for engineering. 

Readers: This job is similar to tutoring but with less human interaction. The prerequisites are the same, too. I would prefer being a tutor because tutoring challenges one’s self more than simply sitting behind a desk and grading programs; however, even being a reader comes with perks. First of all, a reader still has office hours, so employers will still know that this person needed to know his or her material and must have also knew it well enough to teach it. Furthermore, a reader will definitely be working with the professor, so he or she might end up getting research projects, internships, or even jobs since professors usually have lots of connections. 

Works Cited: 

http://cs.ucsd.edu/node/47

http://cse.ucsd.edu/arch

http://cse.ucsd.edu/TutorsReaders