Preface

I will start this chapter by saying the following: I am blessed to receive an education.

I am truly grateful for the given opportunities to be a student and life long learner.

I am aware that we are all unique and not everyone has the same opportunities as I do, and I am thankful for that.

Master’s degree (TBD)

I aim to start and complete a master’s degree program in the near future.

My current interests are as follows:

  1. Internet of Things (IoT);
  2. Network Engineering;
  3. Software Engineering Excellence;
  4. Software Engineering Management.

I will update this section whenever I start a master’s degree and I have some thoughts to share.

Bachelor’s degree (2019 - 2022)

I started my bachelor’s degree in 2019, at the age of 19. I was more social and open-minded than before, but I still did not have many friends.

I was living in Bucharest, the capital of Romania, and I was studying at the Bucharest University of Economic Studies.

Since the pandemic started in 2020, I was “forced” to study from home for 2 full years, out of the 3 years of my bachelor’s degree.

The years of my bachelor’s degree were pretty confusing for me.

I continued to experience sad moments and I was not able to overcome them as easily as before. I was not able to focus on my studies as much as I wanted to, and I was not able to focus on my personal life as much as I needed to.

My opinion on the bachelor’s degree time

I believe that the bachelor’s degree time was a very confusing time for me.

I had to deal with a new environment, high costs of living (for a teenager who was living on his own), and a lot of stress and anxiety.

The bachelor’s degree was extremely lacking in terms of teaching core concepts of computer science. I consider the experience of the bachelor’s degree to be a waste of time, and I believe that I would have been better off if I had not attended it.

Unfortunately, the last paragraph has a lot of weight and I am saddened by the fact that I had to came to this conclusion and share it with you.

The main reasons for this conclusion are:

  • The teachers were not motivated enough to teach us the right things.
  • The curricula contained a lot of useless information and severe, wrong information.
  • The curricula stopped at year 2003, in terms of computer science concepts. (I am not joking, this is the hard truth)
  • The teachers were not acknowledging the fact that the curricula was outdated and wrong and they were not willing to change it.
  • Some teachers were not even aware of the fact that the curricula was outdated and wrong, which is even worse than the previous point.

Good memories from bachelor’s degree time

  • I got to know other students from my university, and I was able to learn from them!
  • I worked at different multinational companies, such as UBISOFT, Intel and Microsoft!
  • I started working full-time as a software developer, achieving one of my biggest dreams!
  • I found my purpose in life. I wanted to become a principal staff engineer, and I started to work towards achieving this goal.

Not so good memories from bachelor’s degree time

  • I couldn’t focus on my personal life as much as I wanted to.
  • I was very confused at interactions with fellow students, and I was not able to make many friends.
  • I still suffered from stress and anxiety, and I was not able to overcome these feelings as easily as before.

High school (2015 - 2019)

I started high school in 2015, at the age of 15. I was still a shy kid, but I was a little bit more social than before.

I was not the best student, but I was not the worst either. I would constantly score in the top 10 students of my class.

I attended high school in my hometown. It was the best high school in the city, and I was very happy to be a student there. I was very good at mathematics, physics, chemistry, history and economy.

I did not have many friends, but I was not alone either. My cousin, Silviu, was also a student there, and I felt very grateful to have him by my side.

The years of high school contained some of the saddest moments of my youth, but I was fortunate enough to be strong enough to overcome them.

My opinion on the high school education system

I believe that the high school education system has, just like the overall education system in Romania, many flaws.

During my youth and time in high school, I felt like the teachers were not interested in teaching us the right things. The teachers were always in a hurry to finish the curricula, and they were not motivated enough to ask us if we understood the concepts that they were teaching us.

High school was the time when I started to question the education system. I was not satisfied with the way that the teachers were teaching us, and I was not satisfied with the way that the curriculas were written.

I felt that I was in a very competitive and stressful environment. I felt that I was not able to express myself freely, and I felt that I was not able to learn the things that I actually wanted to learn.

Good memories from high school time

  • I continued to excel at mathematics, history and economy.
  • I got to know other teenagers from my hometown, and I was able to learn from them!
  • I understood the importance of having a purpose in life, and I started to work towards finding mine.

Not so good memories from high school time

  • I could not focus on my personal life as much as I wanted to.
  • I still did not have a purpose in my studies, I was just going with the flow.
  • It was pretty common for me to experience sad moments, but I was able to overcome them.

Primary school (2007 - 2015)

I started primary school in 2007, at the age of 7. I was a very shy kid, and I did not have many friends. I was not the best student, but I was not the worst either.

I attended primary school in my hometown. I do not have many memories from that time, but I do remember that I was not a very social kid.

I remember that I was very social with my cousin, Silviu, who was also a “student” there.

I remember that I was very good at mathematics, history and economy. I was already proficient in English, since I started learning it at the age of 5, on my own. By the time I finished primary school I was already fluent in English and knew the basics of French.

My opinion on the primary school education system

I believe that the primary school education system has, just like the overall education system in Romania, many flaws.

I remember being told concepts that were not true, and I remember being told that I should not question the teacher’s authority. For example, I remember when we learnt about the tongue map, and I remember when we learnt about the 5 senses. The teacher told us that the tongue map is real, and that we have 5 senses distributed along the tongue. This is simply not true.

Furthermore, I felt like the teachers were not interested in teaching us the right things. This, however, is not entirely their fault, since they are forced to teach us the things that are written in the curriculum.

Not many teachers were motivated enough to teach us the right things, and I believe that this is a big problem with the education system.

In my whole 8 years of primary school, I only had 2 teachers that were motivated enough to teach us the right things:

  • My mathematics teacher, who was also my class lead teacher, was very motivated to teach us the right things. He was very passionate about mathematics, and he was very good at teaching us the right things about life.
  • My history teacher was also very motivated to teach us the right things. He was very passionate about history, and he was very good at teaching us and going the extra mile: he would tell us stories about the history of our country, real stories that were not covered in the curricula.

Good memories from primary school time

  • I remember that I was very good at mathematics, history and economy.
  • I got to know other kids from my hometown, and I was able to learn from them!
  • I made two long lasting friendships, with my cousin, Silviu, and with my classmate, Andrei.

Not so good memories from primary school time

  • I wasn’t a very social kid and I did not have many friends.
  • I did not have a purpose in my studies, I was just going with the flow.

Document revision history

Date (DD-MM-YYYY) Changelog
01-07-2023 Initial document release.