Iowa State University Reflection

This is a brief cummulative reflection of my time in undergrad at Iowa State University

Reflecting on my experience at Iowa State University

At Iowa State University, I gained important technical, communication, and collaboration skills through my coursework, internships, and leadership roles, which have prepared me for a career in engineering.

The diverse number of projects and collaborative learning opportunities at ISU helped me be able to design solutions to real-world problems. During my FPGA-based GPU architecture project, I learned how to collaborate with a team, design hardware and software systems, and test functionality that I would later apply during my internship at Garmin. Experiences like that gave me the confidence to tackle technical challenges in a professional environment while communicating and documenting my solutions clearly.

Completing projects at ISU often required me to go beyond classroom materials and use external resources. I had the opportunity to do an independent study project to deepen my understanding of computer graphics. During this project, which focused on procedural terrain generation, I consulted academic papers and public forums on noise algorithms and procedural geometry to help with my understanding and guide the project’s scope. I value this experience greatly because it taught me how to be independent in my learning.

While my coursework has been important in my learning, I would not be where I am today without the several professional experiences I had. Being a Resident Assistant at ISU helped me develop my leadership and interpersonal skills, and my internships at BAE Systems, Musco, and Garmin all contributed to the problem-solving skills I have today.

At each internship, I was able to apply all the knowledge I learned in the classroom and continuously improve my skills to face the unique challenges of each team I was a part of. At Garmin, I had no experience using Vulkan, but I had to quickly familiarize myself to make meaningful contributions. This made me realize that after graduation and beyond, I will face many challenges that can’t be directly related to my education. This emphasizes the importance of continuing my learning to stay relevant and be able to solve the continuously evolving challenges in the field.

Overall, ISU provided me with a solid foundation to succeed after graduation. While I might change things if I could do it over, I am happy with the challenging and interesting coursework I’ve done that has prepared me to navigate future challenges confidently in my field.