Software Engineering and Honors
An outside perspective on the Honors program from a software engineering professional.
Background
For my H-200 Introduction to Honors class, I was required to interview an alumni of the IU Honors College or a professional within my field. While most of my classmates chose one of the alumni on the list given to us, I chose to interview a professional within my field. Josh Harrison, a graduate of Huntington University, is a senior software developer at Our Sunday Visitor, the largest Catholic publishing company in the United States. In addition to newspapers and other printed items, Our Sunday Visitor also provides a church management portal tailored for Catholic churches. Josh Harrison and I both work on this product, but in very different areas, and we had never met before the interview.
His Story
Joshua Harrison became interested in computers at a young age, when he gained access to ancient Apple computers in elementary school. Back then, computers could do little more than process the programs you typed directly into them, but this still fascinated him. This led to him pursuing computer science in college. At the time, living just over the Ohio border near Fort Wayne, this narrowed his choice of schools to only a few. The final result was Huntington University, which had two things going for it: an excellent computer science program and being the choice of several of his friends. In university, he got a summer internship doing web analytics at Our Sunday Visitor, which led to a full-time software development job after graduation.
An aerial view of Huntington University's campus
Takeaways
While engaged learning can add a lot to any type of major, computer science and software engineering are two areas where it is especially important. When people teach themselves programming, they are encouraged to do as many full projects as possible. This is the best way to learn almost anything, but it is even more useful in my field. Most universities, including Huntington, have computer science students do a senior capstone. This senior capstone usually involves brainstorming, planning, and developing a professional quality software application. For Josh Harrison's, he developed a website that helped with Huntington's complicated dorm choocing process. He wished that he could have done even more of these projects during his time at school.
My main action step, therefore, is to use the opportunity of honors contracts to do as many software development projects as possible. Since I enjoy the process, this will make my honors contracts fun and manageable, while also adding to my resume and preparing me even more for my career.