Scott Ings
San Diego, CA
Class of 2010
Electrical/Computer Engineering, Computer Science, Economics
I have been using computers my whole life and can't point specifically to the point that I started. I do remember using a computer that booted to DOS and used the big 5.25" floppys.
Growing up I primarily used PCs, but I recently switched over to the MacBook Pro.
I use my computer every day for email, classwork, as a calendar, to check finances, and for a variety of other reasons.
I became interested in computer science after taking two computer engineering classes at UNSW in Sydney, Australia last year. Before that I was pursuing an ECE major, but I realized that I liked the software side of computers a lot too, so I decided to add compsci as a dual major.
I think that computer scientists can have a variety of roles relating to their interests and specialties.
Probably my best programming experience was during my summer internship at Qualcomm. I added functionality to some commercial test software that is used to test all of Qualcomm's cell phone chipsets. I enjoyed it because it gave me a chance to be part of an actual software product, and seemed much more real than a school project.
My favorite programming project was the final CompSci 110 project which required groups to hack into a vulnerable server. I thought it was really interesting to be doing something real and visually applicable rather than a lot of the other compsci projects which tend to be a little more abstract.
Though I'm not sure exactly what I will do in the future, I do think that my career will likely be in the field of computing.