How The Movie Hackers Got Me Interested in Computer Science

I’m an incoming transfer student interested in computer science. As a child, the theme of network security and programming have helped sparked my interest in all things digital. Movie were my first revelation to the kind of community established among programmers. Hackers, released in 1995, encouraged the idea of absolute absorption into your coding, so to maintain maximum efficiency. These hollywood-esque films pushed me to delve deeper into the topic; looking up stories of major corporation hackings and entrepreneur software development successions. The one thing that I found most astounding in reading through these articles was that there's a colossal amount of change and power held within one skillful person; it just takes one programmer to affect such a large part of society.

As I grew older, I slowly built up a more sophisticated working knowledge of computers. It fascinated me to see how programming could directly affect the movements of robots and other machinery. Tweaking my desktop in order to optimize efficiency and cleaning my laptop became a regular activity throughout the week, changing the scripting in my applications so that they would operate smoothly. Leaving the mainstream operating systems and installing Linux, a terminal heavy OS, which helped me become more comfortable controlling the computer through the shell rather than a GUI. I feel as if my computers are an extension of me; a tool that has been so finely tuned to my preferences that using anything else would definitely feel foreign. In the process of modifying hardware and software, I slowly understood their basic structure and how they related to one another. There came a time where I was faced with the decision between choosing to pursue computer engineering and computer science, both of which would have me be a part of the group which help advance society. Though I will always have a part of me in both subjects, I saw myself belonging to the environment with other programmers, developing new software to power the technology of the future.