I have always been fascinated about computers, since I first made my first painting with Paint on my dad’s bulky computer. He taught me a lot about gadgets because he used to be an engineer, however I never really got serious about programming. I was just kind of fascinated by how computers, cameras, phones work because of their hardware – how did these tiny wires, processors, etc. all together made a picture on the photographer? There was a moment in my life where I became addicted to computer, which led to hours spent on learning Photoshop, interacting with people on online forums, and also learning some very basics of HTML+CSS. So for me, computing is a big part of my past, though my knowledge in all of it was very basic (I didn’t even know what C++ is).
Once I got into college, my freshman year roommate was studying computer science and was very passionate about it. We spent a long time talking about how important programming and computers are, and I was seriously considering switching my majors because – computing is the future, right? So I decided to learn basic coding by myself, and I realized how important the software of computing is, however I am still an Economics major. At the same time, I kind of lost the track of the technological advancements, such as the latest phone specifications or what the newest personal computer can do. My dad has started to ask me for suggestions for which phone to buy, so I have done some research but it is kind of sad that for me the actual gadgets (or at least their improvements, still wondering how an Arduino redboard can do what it does) have become a smaller part of the meaning of computing in my life.
I am now in my final year and not pursuing a CS major eventually backfired at me, because my capstone is based on computing – I am programming my code, so people can sit at computers and make choices for an hour, which I will later analyze with statistical software later on. At this point, to me computing isn’t the future and neither it is the future for the society – it is the present and something I cannot live without. Except what was considered as “addiction” and a “problem” is now considered to be the “norm” – to spend hours working on the computer.