Clare NicholsonMs. GardnerEnglish 10H, Period 25 March 2015

Reflection: The I-Search ProcessWhen I was introduced to the idea of the I-Search project, my head started spinning at the thought of having to pick a single career choice from the many Ive considered. Marine Biologist? Physicist? Astronomer? How about Mathematician? However, it was being called in to the counseling office (to sort out a scheduling mishap) by the lady filling in for my counselor, Mrs. Winters, that conclusively lead me to the idea of computer sciences and computer engineering as a choice of major for college. So, I threw caution to the wind and went with it. To this minute, Im still indecisive in my attitude toward my career or degree subject choice.Early on in this project, I discovered that, having picked a major subject before a career, Id already made things really hard on myself. While the idea of getting a Masters degree in computer sciences still seems cool, honestly have no idea what Id do with that degree. Initially, I looked up a list of jobs related to computer sciences and I somehow stumbled upon aerospace engineering. Designing and analyzing aircraft designs sounded fun, so I started building my resume off of aerospace engineering, until i realized that jobs in aerospace engineering required a lot more than just my computer sciences Masters from UC Santa Barbara (I chose UCSB because Ive been to the campus and apparently they have highly ranked engineering and physics programs, including computer sciences) to get a job, so I realized that my expectations were probably unrealistic. Instead, I opted for a more software and operating system based career, as a technology engineer. Things didnt get much easier after choosing my career. The search for jobs and internships with related criteria and goals was exceedingly overwhelming; not only because there were so many, but because most technology that was mentioned in job qualifications and descriptions was completely foreign to me. I still dont know what Perl scripting language, is but I tried my hardest to select internships and jobs with related qualifications and descriptions. Id had hopes that emailing the UC Santa Barbara computer sciences professor mentioned as a reference on my resume, Professor Divyakant Granawal, would provide some answers to that could help guide me in building my resume (before Id picked my career but after Id picked the subject of computer sciences). However, I still havent gotten a reply after 4 days; Id imagine, being a college professor, hes already swamped by emails from students and mine just got caught up or forgotten in the mix.Ultimately, though getting advice from someone who knows computer sciences well would have helped, I am quite proud of the work I did and the effort I put into this project. While I was never expecting I-Search to be easy, it was a lot harder than Id first assumed considering the amount of time I ended up putting into research, a grand total of about 5 hours, with an additional 2 hours put into writing up my resume - but I can say that those hours, though confusing and overwhelming, were quite interesting. After this experience, I think that Ill keep computer sciences in mind for a possible college major. By then, maybe Ill know what to do with it And what that pesky Perl scripting language is.