Part One: Set Your Educational Goals
My current educational goal is to earn a bachelor’s in computer science from California State University, Monterey Bay. I strive to earn an A in all CS Online classes. I am also looking to learn valuable skills outside of formal education — for example, I am currently investigating the basics of functional programming using OCaml.
Part Two: Set Your Career Goals
While this may be ambitious, a tangible goal in my career might be to, near the end of the CS Online program, receive and accept an internship offer in the software engineering field. It would be prudent to start compiling projects I have completed to form a portfolio, which will help demonstrate my skills to potential employers.
Part Three: Take a wild guess of your percentile of the ETS Computer Science test
The ETS Computer Science test includes many topics that I am familiar with, and will no doubt learn more about over the next two years. I have always done well in tests relating to computer science, so at the risk of sounding ambitious, I would guess I might score around 90% near the completion of the CS Online program. As for percentiles, while I think it is impossible to guess a specific number, I know many of my peers have more experience than me in these areas; I would guess my standing to be slightly better than average.
Part Four: Keep Up With Your Learning Journal
General lecture included information relating to career goals. Specifically, this reading emphasized the importance of self-assessing, networking, tracking accomplishments, knowing your worth, updating your skills, negotiating, and allowing for downtime.
Writing lab mostly contained information related to our ethics paper. I am steadily becoming confident in my ability to apply various ethical frameworks. This week focused more on the types of claims used to support one’s position in an argument; some examples include claims of fact, claims of definition, claims of cause, claims of value, and claims of policy.
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ReplyDeleteHey Jake, first off I've found that our education and career goals for the moment are very similar. I personally prefer the singular one larger goal at a time approach that you've taken and find it to be very focusing -- compared to having so many aspects of your future planned out that it can get overwhelming or difficult to change paths. The only suggestion I might have for a goal would be to look into compiling projects early on, find some part of your life that you feel might benefit from some technical help and work to solve that problem. Doing this will help you learn new skills, practice current ones, and showcase your abilities to future employers. Even projects as simple as a home NAS is a good example.
ReplyDeleteHey Jake,
ReplyDeleteI share the same main educational goal of earning my bachelors degree in computer science. I think your goal of learning valuable skills such as functional programming is a great idea that will help you earn future employment, and build upon your skillset to use on personal projects you may find yourself interested in as you learn! Additionally, as you stated, you could use this knowledge to build projects, in order to compile a solid portfolio to earn yourself an internship, which I am also interested in earning in the near future. I think that, by sticking to these goals you have set for yourself, you will continue to succeed in your future endeavors!