I'm writing this the evening I went home, just after finishing the fall semester of my fourth and final year. It felt like the right moment to pause and reflect. This semester was difficult and time-consuming, but also genuinely enjoyable in a way that made showing up to lectures and labs feel natural rather than forced.
I took Computer Networks, Distributed Systems, Electricity & Magnetism, and Linear Algebra & Differential Equations. The two courses I found the most challenging, Networks and E&M, were also the ones I enjoyed the most. The difficulty wasn't discouraging, but rather engaging. That's what made this semester stand out.
The project that consumed most of my time was my computer networks project, where I built a networking stack layer by layer over the course of the semester. It's the kind of project I'll write about separately because there's simply too much to unpack in one post. Beyond that, this semester was less about adding new extracurriculars and more about refining my skills as I get closer to entering the workforce. It was a mindset shift toward depth over breadth.
What made the networks project special was how real it felt. It didn't feel like a typical class assignment. There were no rigid constraints beyond producing a working system. My professor left the design decisions entirely up to us, with guidance from TAs during labs, but no prescribed solution. That freedom forced me to think not just about networking concepts, but about system design as a whole factoring in tradeoffs, abstractions, and such. It was the hardest class I've taken, and easily one of the most rewarding.
One clear change in how I approach projects now is the importance of scoping and design upfront. It's incredibly easy to overengineer when you're excited about a problem. Writing even a rough design document clarifying what the system should and shouldn't do saves hours of debugging later. I'm especially glad I learned this lesson before starting my capstone project next semester, where these skills will matter even more.
Outside of computer engineering, my physics course surprised me in a good way. Electricity and Magnetism was conceptually harder than previous physics classes, but far more interesting to me. The labs and problem sets involved very little hand-holding and forced me to think carefully about how I approached problems. Building circuits from schematics in lab made it clear that there are often many valid solutions, each with tradeoffs. That idea that there is no free lunch, or no one-size-fits-all solution, showed up repeatedly, both in physics and in my systems work.
In contrast, solving differential equations felt more mechanical. Still challenging, but more like following a recipe or recognizing patterns than exploring a problem space. Useful, but less engaging than labs or projects.
Looking ahead, I'm excited to keep building. I want to revisit my networks project, fix remaining bugs, and potentially add a simple visual interface to show packets being routed between nodes. This would be something educational rather than a full Wireshark clone. My professor encouraged this direction, and I think it could be a useful learning tool. I'm also interested in applying what I learned in electromagnetism by building an AM radio, focusing on antenna design and wave interference.
That said, rest matters too. I'll be taking a week-long cruise and stepping away for a bit before diving back in. There were plenty of late nights this semester, a lot of debugging, and a lot of shared moments with friends along the way. I'm ending the semester confident that engineering is the right path for me. I'll be looking forward to what comes next.