The Anxious Future

“What do you want to do with your life?”

                                                            I don’t know.

“Does it make money?”

                                                          I think it will.

“How are you going to get there?”

                                                             I don’t know.

“What do you mean you don’t know? You should already have an idea by now.”

                 I kind of do, but I’m lost. I don’t know how to get there.

“This is your future, why aren’t you taking it seriously?”

                                                                I am. I am.

Anxiety. Anxiety. Anxiety.

How many times have you heard one of these questions, in some form? How many times were you able to answer it with certainty? I’d bet my lucky coin to say a good sum of you probably didn’t know how to answer these questions at 15. Maybe you had some idea formed at the time, but I’d bet another one of my lucky coins to say that maybe, for some of you, that idea changed and you ended up going another route that was completely different from what you originally intended.

There’s a lot of pressure to have everything figured out, and it can be so daunting at a young age. Especially when there’s all this outward pressure from your family, your peers, your teachers, and your counselors. I can tell you, that in my head, my career path changed a billion times. I dreamed of being a doctor, an architect, an interior designer, graphic designer, culinary chef, Chinese linguist, a diplomat in International Foreign Relations, systems engineer…etc. The world is so vast, and the options, many, it definitely took a couple of tries before I landed on Computer Science. For me, I was so scared of finality. Of limitations.

Where do I start?

Even after switching majors and deciding to pursue Computer Science, I’m still exploring what exactly I would like to do in the technical field. So far I’ve had internships in Cybersecurity and Network Engineering, and that helps me to get a feel for real-world experience, but the questions don’t stop there. What more is there? Where do I look? I know this field can be competitive, how do I gain experience, how do I prepare?

Try RadGrad

Recently, I’ve tried RadGrad to help enrich my undergraduate experience, and was honestly so impressed how it centralized all the resources we needed in one place. It had personalized suggestions based on your interests in the computer science field. Based on those interests, I was able to find organized courses that aligned with my interests to build my academic plan, and even found detailed resources to opportunities that I didn’t even know existed within the University of Hawaii, or the community. It was a great information outlet for these students, who might not have known where to look or what to search.

I think what was interesting about exploring the opportunities section is all of the programs listed detailed information on it, how to join, and how it aligns with what you are looking to improve, which definitely helps you tailor what you want to build your skill set and experience in. Especially since it has a feature where you can sort it by recommendation and the ones that align to your interests can be filtered towards the top. Some interesting ones I saw were ‘Cracking the Coding Interview,’ ‘AllNet,’ ‘Google Summer of Code,’ and etc. I think it just kind of opened a new world for me that I had an inkling existed, but finally confirmed and revealed. I felt like a toddler at a candy store, the world was at my fingertips. There were so many options. It kind of made my worries look smaller. It was reassuring to think, the world isn’t as limited as you think it is, so long as you’re searching. Now I know where to look if I want to find more about Data Science, or if I want to learn more about Databases, Algorithms, Application Development…etc. Maybe I already know what I’m interested in building a career out of, and I want to know how to build my resume and experience for that, well now there’s a centralized platform to find opportunities that are tagged in that specific interest.

Finding Security

Having planned through RadGrad, and explored all the opportunities, the careers, and the courses, it helps to give a sense of security. I definitely do think that RadGrad can give undergraduates a better degree experience because it presents all the tools you need to succeed and how. I think what really scares us is lack of knowledge. Of not knowing. Oftentimes we get so overwhelmed, our initial reaction is to avoid it, put it on a back burner, think about it later. Or well…at least that’s what I do, if you’re the type to face a problem head on to get it over with, then I truly commend you. Thinking back, my anxiety could have easily been solved, if I had just confronted it and done more research. I guess one of the harder parts though, is knowing where to start. For those pursuing computer science, well, RadGrad might just be the place to start.