Why did you decide to study Software Engineering?

Eric Contreras Cabrera
2 min readJan 21, 2021

Ever since I was very young, I remember looking at the environment and asking questions that no one around me was able to answer properly. “Why is the sky blue?” I asked in awe, looking at the blue vastness that appeared to have no end. “It has always been that way!” My parents answered, as if that was a satisfactory answer to stop my curiosity. From those times on, I knew I had to find the answers I was seeking for myself. What started as childhood curiosity, turned out to be a lifelong journey into why things behave the way that they do.

My quest for knowledge led me to be very interested in S.T.E.M., since I found a lot of the answers I was seeking within mathematics and the sciences. I have always enjoyed science, ranging from evolution to electromagnetics, but more importantly, the way electronics behave and how they have completely transformed modern society. With this in mind, I decided to pursue a career in electrical engineering because I was eager to learn the laws that governed the world of electronics. After learning all about semiconductors, transformers, and circuits, on top of working as an electrical engineer for nearly five years, I realized I was missing a critical part in my understanding of the technological world. I had been focused on why electronics behave the way that they do, while overlooking the question about how code, a set instructions, can be written to make wonders like The Internet. I knew I had to find the bridge for my knowledge gap between electronics and software. Thus, I found what software engineering meant to me:

Given the complexity of the inner workings of nature, software condenses physical laws into human readable syntax that can be applied to any industry.

Throughout my journey in understanding the physical world, I was aware software engineering was crucial for developing new technology, but it never felt as tangible as working with electronics. However, with new insight and newfound curiosity, I decided to kickstart my career and seriously learn software engineering. As I delve deeper into the various programming languages, I can feel my understanding of technology intensifying. I have always felt that nature had specific languages that described every aspect of the universe. While coding, I feel like I’m finally able to slowly understand the digital world that had eluded me for far too long.

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