Cumulative Reflection

Throughout this pursuit of my undergraduate degree, one thing that I am the most thankful for was the
constant hands-on experience. Although it is not quite in the traditional hands-on sense, but rather
the constant immersion in the material, the constant projects and meaningful work have led me to
become a better engineer, and problem-solver. I have gained the ability to think how I would design a
systems software architecture from my Software Architecture and Software Requirements courses, to
be able to take an idea and look at it from the viewpoint of a user, and of an engineer. Throughout all of
my courses since my freshman year, the constant pressure of projects which force you to work through
and understand the class material has taught me how to solve a myriad of issues as they arise, and force
me to research better technologies and ways to implement change for those projects in which we are
allowed creative freedom. Some courses here at Iowa State are all about coming up with a proprietary
software product and implement it, and if we as students can dream big enough we can see how our
applications and services can impact change for a wider audience than our classmates. These few
courses where we get to come up with an idea and implement it were eye-opening for me as they
allowed my groupmates and I to dream of creating solutions to make life easier and more convenient for
people. Throughout these project-based courses however we were constantly made aware of what
ethical implications walk hand-in-hand with software development. A professor of mine (who will
remain nameless) once pointed out You guys are in such high demand that you should not have to
sacrifice your morals/ethics just to get a job which I felt was amazing. That this program at this
university is empowering its students with the knowledge and skills that we can pick where we desire to
work and in such a manner that we will not have to compromise what we feel is right.

While we may not have to compromise on our ideals within industry, one way that Iowa State excels at
teaching its students important professional skills is the requirement of group work. Starting sophomore
year, I have been in at least one four-person project based course, this year alone I am in four of them.
These skills, of working with a myriad of personalities and skillsets sets us up for working with exactly
that in industry, a myriad of personalities and skillsets. The most valuable experience I gained within this
realm was pursuing a Co-Op opportunity my sophomore year which taught me to work with people who
had been engineers longer than I had been alive, as well as other interns and freshly graduated
engineers. This experience of working with vastly different skillsets coupled with working with my peers
who have many different passions and interests has taught me how to work in groups quite well
(sometimes at the cost of some sleep). Working in these conditions it teaches us as students one very
valuable professional lesson, and that is how to handle inter-personal conflicts and deliver what was
promised to a teacher or employer.

While these group courses are vital to becoming a competent engineer and teach some very valuable
skills, the majority of coursework is individual. I did not use my professors as a resource outside of class
until my fourth semester at Iowa State, and they are the best resources available. The teaching
assistants are a close second as they are most likely doing the grading so knowing what they are looking
for is tantamount to success. Aside from utilizing these resources I constantly googled anything that I did
not immediately understand whether this is some new technology that is mentioned or how a solution
actually works. I hardly ever utilized the library resources unless it was specifically for an online course, I
simply study there when I do not have enough time to go home. In the courses where it is acceptable to
collaborate my peers were also wonderful sources of inspiration as they look at problems and solutions
in a different way than I do, and speaking to them about these things often yields some fresh insight.

Every semester that I was enrolled at Iowa State (aside from when I was on a Co-Op) I attended the Iowa
State Engineering Career Fair. This career fair is one of the best in the nation and to not go is simply
setting oneself up for failure. It got me not only my first internship experience but also yielded me my
first full-time offer in October 2017. This is the one institution organized event that I would stress any
engineer not to miss, it is a tremendous opportunity. Other organizations I primarily strayed from since I
am very busy attempting to focus in a consecutive four years even with taking a Co-Op. Outside of extra-
curricular groups however I do have a vested interest in my own learning. While on the job hunt I lookup
new technologies and industry-standard languages that we have not been taught in school yet. For
instance in my latest interview process led to me researching the language Scala. This is just a minute
example of looking past what is taught by the professors and learning something that benefits myself to
know.

If I had to redo my undergraduate studies I would take summer internships instead of sacrificing a
semester of school to have a Co-Op. While I count the Co-Op as a tremendous blessing, it led to a lot of
stress further down the road in my attempt to finish school on time. I would also attend group meetings
that sounded fun but did not require any more work on top of my studies. This would have taught me
more and allowed me to network better while not causing an overbearing amount of work along with
my studies.