Cumulative Reflection

Over my years here at Iowa State, I have taken many different classes that helped to
shape me in to the student I am today, and the future computer engineer I will be. I have been
blessed with wonderful classes, teachers, and opportunities during my stint here. I have gotten
amazing hands on experience during my labs, group projects, and internships. From the second I
took my first introduction to programming my first semester here, I knew there was no place that
I would rather be.
I wasn’t always completely enthralled with computer engineering, or even knew if it was
the right major for me. During my final years of high school, I was doing all the preparation for a
pre-med degree and then to go to medical school. All it took was one trip to a cadaver lab late in
my senior year and I knew that I was going to need to change up my plan. I always knew that I
enjoyed the math and science aspects of school, and it was something that I excelled at, so I
decided to go to Iowa State’s engineering visit day, and it was that very same day that I declared
my major as computer engineering, and I haven’t looked back since.
One of the most valuable skills I have learned and developed has begun during my final
year here, within in my senior design class. I learned about the professional interactions between
the workers, or us students, and the client that was requiring our service. It was during Computer
Science 309: Software Develop Practices that I gained professional experience working in a
group with other students to complete a semester-long project. I used these software
development skills such as issue management and incremental code development to help us
create an Android application with a functioning front end and a proper back end that we could
all be proud of.
Over my time at Iowa State, I learned to utilize the tools that Iowa State graciously
provides to us students to help myself with my learning. Some of these tools were the
supplemental instruction (SI) sessions that are provided for some of the earlier classes. These
were an excellent way for me to go over and engrain the important topics in my brain, as well as
get a better understanding of the topics I didn’t understand as well. Another amazing tool that we
have at our fingertips, is all the exceptional teaching assistants and graduate students at Iowa
State. I have used them to help me with physics or electrical engineering homework. I have
gotten help studying for different exams and completing various computer engineering labs.
During one of my Computer Engineering 308: Operating Systems labs specifically, I went to a
TA’s office hours and we spent nearly two hours helping me completely reconstruct and finish
creating a kernel in Linux. They are a truly valuable resource for helping you understand or
complete work. Finally, I have also been able to utilize teacher’s office hours as well, which is
one of the most underrated things you can do for yourself at Iowa State. These teachers are who
are creating the exams, the homework, and the labs, so why not use them as a resource if you
have questions or need help. One of the main reasons I was able to do so well in all my calculus
classes was because of all the extra review sessions that Professor Butler held. Taking hours out
of my weekends to attend these was a no-brainer.
 During my time at Iowa State, I have been presented with and solved numbers of
engineering problems. One specific example that sticks out to me combines the technical
problem as well a more complicated social problem grouped with it as well. During the last half
of the lab for Computer Engineering 381: Computer Organization and Assembly Level
Programming, we were tasked with creating our own processor with a partner. Due to uneven
numbers, our group was given an extra member, giving us three members to complete two
people’s worth of work. This was a difficult issue at first to solve, but I came up with the
solution of having one person work on the background research and have two work on the hands-
on portion of the lab. Then this would rotate every week of the lab so we would all hit the
different parts of the group. Because of this experience we gained a deeper understanding and
knowledge of our project, as well as still gaining the hands-on experience. We ended up getting
an amazing grade in the lab, and it ultimately benefitted all our test grades as well because of our
deeper understanding of the concepts.
One of my regrets at Iowa State was not being able to join as many clubs or use as much
of extra time for engineering related tasks. As much as I love to learn using online classes or
YouTube tutorials, I wish I would’ve engaged myself in these technical opportunities in a bigger
group format at Iowa State. They offer a lot of amazing clubs and I didn’t take full advantage of
that opportunity. I do have the drive to continue my learning after Iowa State though, and it
would be very important to me to go to a company that would support this. With the
technological world constantly changing, it is important to make sure you are constantly moving
forward with it. Odds are, if you aren’t learning more, you are falling behind. I would love to go
to a career where I can continue to develop my previous skills, as well as engage in learning new
ones.
My time at Iowa State has transformed me into a person I never thought I could be, and I
know that I will remember my four and a half years here for the rest of my life. I have learned so
much thanks to all the incredible resources that Iowa State provides its computer engineering
students. Upon reflection, I know that there will always be some regrets because I have been here
for so long, but I know that I did the best that I could and made the most of my time here at Iowa
State. It was an amazing experience and I believe that it prepared me tremendously for my next
steps towards becoming a computer engineer.