2000-11-11: Been There Done That...
This is a tribute to the two people that influenced my decision to do software engineering.
Four years ago, I sat at 1 am in the morning on the phone, punching in my Student QTAC number to see what university I got into.
Previous to this I was finishing my year 12 studies at Kedron High School in Brisbane, Australia. I had gone to the guidance officer to put in my university preferences to Ms Thompson, and she said
"have you heard of this Software Engineering Degree?"
The truth was I hadn't. It was at Griffith University, a place I hadn't really considered. So I put it down as my "number 2" preference behind IT at the University of Queensland. After a while I was sent a letter in the mail from Griffith saying that they were having an engineering open-day or something. I decided to go. So off I toddled with my father to Griffith to see what all the fuss was about. I of course arrived late and got directed to where I needed to go by Prof. Geoff Dromey (the head of the school). We finally met up with everyone for a talk about this myserious thing called "Software Engineering".
A few students got up and said their piece and then a gentleman got up to speak "Why should you do Software Engineering as opposed to a normal IT degree..." he was very eloquent and I was convinced. That man was Don Abel, a lecturer at Griffith.
Perhaps I am a sheep, perhaps it was just a real good explanation. I can't remeber the details, but I do remember going straght home and changing "Software Engineering" to my top preference.
So, about a month later, I was sitting my the phone at 1 am dialing the automated enrollment checker to see where I got accepted. I was accepted! I confirmed straight away. I was paraniod enough to do it twice to make sure. It took a while as every other year 12 in the state had been dialing in since the line went active at midnight.
Tired, and bleary-eyed I wrote on a piece of paper the following and stuck it to my door. I don't know why I kept it, but it's kinda cool to think of where I was then and where I am now:
So there you have it, the story of how I got into software engineering. As an addendum:
I Have DONE Software Engineering! (woo hoo)
Not only that, I did it with honours.