The Alumni Panel provided me with many insights that helped me understand the usefulness and applications of computer science for my future education and overall future. Computer science stretches far beyond basic programming and leads to many avenues of exploration, including problem-solving, functions and algorithms, the complexity of web development, and building logical thinking backgrounds towards other degrees. It is an all-purpose technical background to develop your skills.

When the alumni were talking about their greatest challenges in computer science, I could relate to many of their insecurities with errors being major roadblocks that you have to work through. On top of this, I would definitely agree that those who are “good” at computer science think that they are better than others. Many aspects of computer science in general are much more enjoyable if you focus on your own path and keep maintaining motivation. There is a lot of temptation to copy or plagiarize someone else’s work, and you need to change your mindset to overcome this.

Finally, I learned about the further applications of computer science, specifically in mechanical engineering, which is conveniently also my major of choice. I learned that computer science could be used to write scripts that can automate tasks in projects. Even CAD projects and basic Jupyter notebooks have applicable code to make your life easier.

I gained so much insight from this panel, and I am eager to learn even more about computer science in the near future.