I have always wanted to be a computer scientist. I got my first computer when I was all of four years old and I loved it to bits. I was fascinated by it, and I would spend hours on it trying to see what each and every application that came installed on it did. That was the beginning of my fascination with computers. I picked up LOGO at school and I would spend my evening trying to draw the weirdest shapes possible. BASIC and C followed, and I would try to solve as many problems as I could get my hands on. String manipulation problems were my favourite, most of my classmates struggled with them and I enjoyed the feeling of being the first person in the class to successfully tackle them.
It was only when I started my formal education in Computer Science that I realised that there was much more to CS than the quirky problems that I enjoyed and I appreciated it all the more for it. I enjoyed constructing database schemas, I enjoyed my initial struggles with functional programming and first order logic, I enjoyed my bewilderment when I first heard of the halting problem and I enjoyed the many hours I spent in trying to solve all the assignments that we were set. Oh, and I definitely enjoyed the weeks and months that I spent in configuring my Gentoo installation exactly the way I wanted it to be.
I am glad that I could fulfil my dream of being a computer scientist. I am glad that I am doing what I’ve always wanted to do and I still love it. I am now fascinated by databases and the process of designing an efficient one. I am interested in recommender systems. I keenly follow the recent developments in mobile technology. Software engineering excites me, and I would love to contribute towards a challenging project that solves a tangible problem. I am sure that I’ll find something that suits me, that is good for me. Sooner or later.
But the best part is that there is still so much to learn, still so many new avenues to explore, all in the field of computer science. That makes me happy.