Kevin Lin

Professor Moore

CPRE 494

Cumulative Reflection

As I look back on the 4 years I’ve spent here at Iowa State, I realize that time

really has flown by unbelievably quickly. It seems like just yesterday that I was

attending my 8 AM class freshman year. I distinctly remember buying a 4 year

TopHat subscription, only to find out that no one used it after freshman year. Honestly,

that might be one of the only regrets I have about my time at Iowa State.

Coming into Iowa State, I had already decided on my major - Computer

Engineering. I never wavered from that, and I find myself here 3 years later, and soon

to be graduating with a Bachelors in Computer Engineering. In fact, the very first

class I ever attended at Iowa State was CprE 185: Introduction to Computer

Engineering and Problem Solving. To be completely honest, this class was relatively

easy for me - although definitely not without its own hiccups. I can palpably

remember the frustration that I felt when trying to finish a particularly difficult lab. It

consisted of making a maze like game, and navigating my character through it. It took

a whole lot of troubleshooting to resolve a specific bug - and as it turns out, it wasn’t

even my code that was the issue, rather the controller itself. I had to leverage a lot of

help from my lab TAs (teaching assistants) to figure that one out.

In my sophomore year, I took a class that was completely different from CprE

185. COMS 309, Software Development Practices was something completely

different from anything I had ever taken before. This class was a project class where

the objective was to create a complete android application with your team by the end

of the semester. The lectures gave a good general overview of how to use the
technologies, but no specifics on really how to implement it. And obviously, as open

ended as the class was, research really had to be done on your own. To that end, Stack

Overflow became my best friend during that time. Using the building blocks that the

professor gave us, our team had to slowly build our application from the ground up.

For example, we had to learn how to use the Java Spring framework, Mockito testing,

and API documentation all at the same time. We had to engineer all of this together.

During the class, we developed our software following the Agile method, which

allows for much greater flexibility in software development. This is something that I

will actually be able to carry over into a full time job as well, as many companies

actually use Agile methodologies to develop engineering products. I will forever be

thankful that I took this class, as this really was what propelled me to into becoming a

Software Engineer after graduation.

During the same time I was taking COMS 309, I was presented with a unique

challenge that thousands of college students were also facing around the globe. The

COVID-19 pandemic completely shifted the way school was taught, and what I

thought about it. That year really sucked. I had class in my dorm room, ate in my

dorm room, worked in my dorm room, studied, and did homework in there as well. It

was a challenge unlike anything else I ever had before. It was really difficult to stay

motivated, but with the help of professors and my friends, I was able to pull through.

Going into my junior year, I was elated to hear that most of my classes would

be back in person. I had already been vaccinated, and was motivated for a new year. I

took some interesting classes this year that really broadened my horizons. Honestly,

the most interesting class out of all of them was probably ARCH 321: History of the

American City. Learning about the societal, economic, and environmental impacts

city layouts made on their residents was actually really intriguing. I’ve always been a
bit of a history nerd, but this class was presented in a way that really made me think

about what is below the surface. For example, learning how the griddlecake city of

Philadelphia came to place as a result of the religious beliefs that the Puritans held.

Although I’m not an architecture major, this class gave me knowledge I will for sure

remember for a lifetime.

Despite these classes, most of my attention was really spent towards searching

for an internship for the summer. I was lucky enough to intern with Northwestern

Mutual over the summer as a Tech Operations Intern. Although it was not really what

I was looking for specifically (as a Software Engineer), I have no regrets about taking

the offer. I learned a lot about industry, and met a ton of new friends.

As I go into my fourth and final year at Iowa State, I’ve realized that there is

always more to learn. This is something that is reflective of Software Engineering as

well. The more you learn in Software Engineering, you more you learn you don’t

know. There really is an abyss of knowledge to take in from technology, and I want to

be a part of that expedition team. Over the years, I’ve learned Linux on my own, done

my own side projects, and sook out opportunities that I thought would be beneficial to

me. If there’s one thing that I had to take away from my time at Iowa State, it

definitely would be the problem solving methodology that I’ve learned and how to

apply it to all sorts of engineering problems.