Week 5: Post 3

    I got the issue with switching topics resolved. I had a meeting with Evan, the person over the REU program, and told them what was going on with Vicki. Essentially, they told me that I could do my original topic and they gave me some ideas as to how I could execute it. I feel as though I still don't feel 100% secure as to what I'm doing and I'm very worried because of it. I just feel like there's something that I am missing when it comes to research. 

    Because of this, the experience so far has me questioning aspects of my future. Evan gave a talk on graduate school on Friday as well and it has me thinking, do I really want to pursue graduate school? I understand that in order to get my PhD I would have an advisor who would be my mentor but after this I'm really not sure if I want to do research at all. I think I would like it a lot more if I had a clear direction as to what I was doing and some more guidance with that. I was also thinking that I could always pursue a Master's instead. But then that also leads me into a rabbit hole of what I really want to do with my life. I really don't want to be a software engineer and I feel as though Berea's curriculum focuses and pushes students to be software engineers. But in reality, there is a whole realm of computer science that isn't really talked about at Berea. 

    As I have been working on rendering my nature environments, it has led me into a lot of graphic and design issues that I have to figure out myself. I think it's really fun being able to create my own environments and being able to make the assets that I want myself. This has me thinking that I could potentially pursue some sort of graphics design for video games. I wanted to originally work with video games when I became a computer science major but I always thought that it was out of my range. But doing this type of work I believe that it is possible for me to pursue a career in something like this if I were to get a Master's degree.