From the start the Pandemic changed everything. I had just graduated from grad school and was looking forward to finding a job right after. There was no doubt in my mind that this was the next step but there was always a fear lurking in the back of my mind that I wasn't ready or qualified to work. What the Pandemic did in the beginning was amplify my worries and shrivel my confidence in myself. With constant rejections and no direction, I began drown in my fears and no matter how much comfort others gave me, it was blocked by the negativity.
After that phase, I stopped to rethink my goals. First, I had to remind myself that I went to grad school because I wanted to be in education. Second, I had review what interests I leaned towards by the end of graduation. Third, I had to look at why and for whom I wanted to help.
During the Pandemic, I began to tutor English to kids residing in Asia. From an underprivileged background, I could feel that they had vigor and motivation to study online. More importantly, they knew how important English was to their future. Working with them required me to expand my creativity in sustaining their motivation and help me learn the real beauty of learning online. By creating a hybrid of online and analogue pedagogy, I could see the students motivation never faltering. It was surprisingly personable experience that was almost as real. Soon my thought lingered to the questions:
Could these virtual lessons help them in the real world? How? And do they leave tangible impact on the student?
These were all questions that begun to re-spark my passion.
It was from tutoring that I could solidify that I want to join the Education Technology field. So what's my goal? I'd like to enhance the online learning experience. My experience showed me that online learning has the potential to connect unexpected people together and even have a meaningful experience.
Why software engineering?
For the short-term goal, I want to create websites that enhance my student's learning experience. But for the long term, I would like to continue discovering how web design can cater more towards the human experience in online learning and transfer the virtual experience into the real world.
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