1 answer
Ezekiel
Student
Imperial, California
3
Questions
Updated
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How will be being strict benefit me being a software engineer?
I am an 8th grader and I am wondering if being strict would actually have any real benefit for being a software engineer or is it unnecessary?
1 answer
Nathan Parker
Engineer
6
Answers
Indianapolis, Indiana
Updated
Nathan’s Answer
If by "strict" you mean "disciplined", then my opinion would be that yes, you will benefit from being disciplined in how you approach, study, and work in software engineering. Generally, I think most fields of study benefit from professionals who are disciplined. In software engineering, you are going to be called on to solve problems using your coding and problem-solving skills while applying some sort of domain-specific knowledge about the problem or industry to your approach. While there is room for creativity in any field, software engineering included, "creative" does not mean "sloppy". In the real world, the problems you will be presented with are, well, unstructured or messy, and part of solving them is putting some sort of structure to them to get to a solution, and it will be to your benefit to be able to do that.
Being disciplined won't just help you be a better software engineer, but it will also help you to be a better learner, which you are going to have to do a lot of throughout your entire career (in most any field, not just software engineering). Technology touches a lot of industries, and those industries change as a result: new problem-solving methods come out, new programming languages are created to solve specific types of problems, new algorithms are invented to enhance certain kinds of computer operations, etc. To stay at the top of your game, you will be expected to learn these new insights, and sometimes you will have to do that on your own without the help of a classroom or instructor. Sometimes, something is so new that very few folks have figured it out, or there won't be any learning resources out yet, or the resources that are out there just don't work for you, so you will be left to fend for yourself. This is just another case of an unstructured problem that you will have to solve, but you solve it for yourself and figure out a way to learn it.
If you are asking this kind of question now, I'm confident you have the ability to choose and implement the right approach that will for you. Best of luck!
Being disciplined won't just help you be a better software engineer, but it will also help you to be a better learner, which you are going to have to do a lot of throughout your entire career (in most any field, not just software engineering). Technology touches a lot of industries, and those industries change as a result: new problem-solving methods come out, new programming languages are created to solve specific types of problems, new algorithms are invented to enhance certain kinds of computer operations, etc. To stay at the top of your game, you will be expected to learn these new insights, and sometimes you will have to do that on your own without the help of a classroom or instructor. Sometimes, something is so new that very few folks have figured it out, or there won't be any learning resources out yet, or the resources that are out there just don't work for you, so you will be left to fend for yourself. This is just another case of an unstructured problem that you will have to solve, but you solve it for yourself and figure out a way to learn it.
If you are asking this kind of question now, I'm confident you have the ability to choose and implement the right approach that will for you. Best of luck!
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