First Blog

As this is my first blog, I would like to keep it short and interesting rather than oversized and boring.

At some point a few months ago, I found myself digging within this student blog trying to get some answers, trying to understand what was coming, trying to be prepared; and I have to say that it was very helpful, especially because I got the answers I was looking for. I even remember e-mailing one of the bloggers and getting a very quick answer, remember, this is ECS, we spend our life in front of a computer…

I should probably start saying that I am not the average 18 old fresher, and that I am not from around here. I am 26 years old and I was born in Uruguay (fourth place in the world cup), so I am considered a “mature” “overseas” student. It sounds funny; it’s almost like if I belong to all the minorities; that is where my doubts were coming from, will I really notice the gaps? I am quite good at logical reasoning, maths and problem solving skills, but I still belong to the 50% of the computer science or software engineering first year students that do not have any experience in programming whatsoever.

I am only two weeks into the course, and I have to say that my experience in this place is much better than what I was actually expecting. I already made a few friends, and learned loads of new stuff. On my first day I was an international student who couldn’t code and apparently older than everyone else. Going for the third week, I already managed to code a hello world program, a guessing game, and an ATM machine (not so bad); I already passed my first engineering maths test, I produced a simple ECS website and met crazy numbers of new people. Not too bad from my point of view.

Today, everything shines.

My advice at this point, GO FOR IT! WHATEVER IT IS… it won’t be as scary and difficult as it looks.