I thought I would do a piece on my career to date. I am
currently on my placement year (3rd year) in my Software Engineering
degree. So I decided to give a brief synopsis of my career so far.
So I started out contemplating a career with computers and
technology whilst doing my A levels in 6th form. I enjoyed doing ICT
A Level however most of the work we did over that time was fairly basic
involving databases, websites and lengthy write ups. However it was a good
introduction to the subject opened my eyes to further career possibilities.
Over the course of my A Levels I decided to volunteer at a
Coder Dojo which was a code club for children aged from 6-12 years old. I was a
mentor helping out the children whilst the teacher taught the lesson. They were
taught using programs like Scratch, App Inventor, Gamemaker, etc. I found this
interesting and managed to get some good advice from the teachers at the Coder
Dojo.
Whilst doing this I saw potential for a code club in my own
school, so I set up a code club which was run during lunch times for the junior
pupils. We taught them lessons on games, html and various other fun activities.
I continued to pursue my interest of technology in the
summer of finishing my AS Levels deciding to participate in a 2-week code camp
hosted by a local IT company in Belfast. This was a great experience and
opportunity to find out more about careers within IT. The purpose of the code
camp was to build an Android App using MIT’s App Inventor. I managed to become
a finalist of the code camp and won a prize for basically being the most
curious about the subject of IT.
During my final year of A Levels I set up a YouTube channel
posting mostly reviews of tech products which started to gain a little traction
with my best video reaching 50k views. More of a side project but has come up
in interviews before with Tech companies.
Once I gained acceptance in to my Software Engineering
course, I entered a competition called Project Arduino hosted by another Tech
Company. The aim was to use an Arduino to create a product of use for the
company. Myself and 3 others ended up winning the University heat and the UK
heat, only to narrowly miss out on winning the competitions worldwide heat.
I then began to apply for scholarships that were offered to
first year students at the University. The scholarship offered work experience
during the summer break of first year, your years placement and monetary
benefits along with that. I got an offer for one of the companies and accepted
their scholarship and spent my first year summer working for 3 months in the IT
Company. I worked on an Angular project which was really enjoyable and learnt a
lot over the course of the summer.
During my second year of University I started researching summer
internships to apply for. I ended up finding a global internship offered by an
Indian company Infosys. I applied, interviewed and successfully got the
position. I then spent 10 weeks of my summer working on a Machine Learning
project identifying fraudulent entry in to offices. This was an amazing
experience culturally and professionally.
So this brings me to where I am now, working on my placement
year with the company that hired me in my first year. I am currently working on
an automated end-to-end testing environment and enjoying every minute of it. I
started this blog in August 2018 and still upload YouTube videos. Who knows
what will happen within the next couple of years but I am excited to see where
it takes me.
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