In this blog post, I’ll share my experience developing games and apps for personal projects and how to effectively incorporate hands-on problem solving and creativity into your programmer cover letter.
Growing up
“Growing up, I was very interested in music”
Growing up, I was very interested in music. I was interested in classical music, piano music, and pop songs rather than pop songs. I wanted to try my hand at playing such music, so I enrolled in a piano academy early on, and it was a satisfying experience to be able to play delicate music. I started attending the academy in elementary school and continued to play the piano until I was in high school. During that time, my skills improved significantly, and I often won prizes in competitions, but most importantly, I gained a lot of personal benefits by increasing my knowledge of music and harmony.
When I was in middle school and high school, I would always get perfect grades in my music courses, but I didn’t have enough skills to major in piano or grow as a performer. Being a male player, there were differences between me and female players, and even apart from the gender difference, I was basically not perfect in detail. Therefore, I decided to become a programmer to take advantage of my interest in computers, and I decided to continue playing the piano as a hobby. I never tried to be too good, especially at the piano, but rather just played consistently when I wanted to hear my favorite music with my own ears.
In my senior year of high school, I was very stressed about entrance exams, but sometimes playing music would take my mind off of it. I also studied hard in computer courses to major in programming and studied for the SAT to prepare for the entrance exams. Sometimes I would come up with ideas and make games in the programming club, and I was able to utilize my musical knowledge. When I made games, I needed sound effects or background music, and I had a lot of knowledge about music to insert. So I don’t think there is no connection between music, computers, and programming, and I plan to continue to develop my interest in both.
Personality strengths and weaknesses
“I have a strong personality with long term focus.”
I have a strong ability to focus. Once I get my hands on something, I have the tenacity to see it through to the end. Of course, I don’t mean the kind of short-term focus that makes you tune out your surroundings for a moment, but rather the kind of persistence and patience that doesn’t allow you to change interests or let go over the long term, and that’s what I personally refer to as long-term focus. My long-term focus helps me not to lose interest in one thing easily, and it helps me not to give up. So I started playing piano as a child, and I never gave up easily until I was in high school. I could have moved on to another instrument, or I could have gotten frustrated with the difficult parts, but I didn’t.
For example, when I played piano, if I was playing a “sonata” piece of music, I would set a goal to finish it in a few months because it meant something to me to finish it. With classical music, it’s easy to skip around or play a different chord because it’s long or difficult, but I would never do that, I would try to play it correctly, and I would strive to achieve my goal of finishing it. If that doesn’t work out, I’ll change my goal from six months to a year to finish it in a year and memorize it completely, so I’m in it for the long haul. Programming is the same way. If I try to finish a game in a semester and it doesn’t work out, I don’t give up or fold, I just try to see it through to the end, and I think that’s part of my long-term focus.
If there’s a downside, it’s that I think too much. I like to think a lot, I like to contemplate, and I read a lot of books, and of course it’s helped me a lot in my growth process to formulate my thoughts, but I’ve always found that overthinking limits my actions and prevents me from being honest, and there are times when I overcomplicate things that are actually very simple, which leads me away from the truth. So I’m working on modifying my attitude to keep things simple and to judge things by what I see, and to only overthink things that are very important.
Hobbies and specialties
“Studying programming languages.”
Some people completely separate their hobbies from their work, but in my case, I can say that my hobbies and work are combined. A hobby is something you can do for fun without using your brain, and work is something you do for a living with a little more brain power. I’m an aspiring programmer, and I write computer programs and design software. While doing this, I don’t think of it as work, but rather, I try to always enjoy participating in the planning, development, and execution of programs, and my hobby, which I do when I have time, is to study programming.
What I’m studying is programming languages. The more I learn about various programming languages, the more it will help me in my work, not hurt it, so I take relevant lectures, read textbooks, and reference books to build my knowledge of the languages. Specifically, there are several programming languages, including C, JSP, MFC, and JAVA, and while I’ve mastered them to a certain extent, I’m always trying to upgrade. Studying is not usually a fun subject, but strangely enough, I find it very interesting when I’m studying programming languages, so I guess you could say that I don’t separate my hobbies, studies, and work.
My specialty is modifying existing programs using those programming languages. Developing new things is what I want to do, and my goal is to become a developer who does that, but once I have time, what I often do is improve rather than develop. There are already a lot of existing software, Android games, and other programs. I try to use a lot of these programs, but I don’t just use them as an adopter, but I also try to modify and improve them by applying new things to them. I think that they would be better if I applied these ideas, so I try to imitate them. When I practice this a lot, I often find that there is a greater improvement in my work, ideas, and strategies.
Motivation and ambition
“To create added value for your company.”
When I applied for a job at your company, I was looking for a position to develop content and applications for your customers. In college, I majored in programming and worked on many industry-academia collaboration projects. I developed simple game programs, promotional advertising programs, and so on. After gaining this experience, I developed a real-time location tracking program as my graduation project. I developed a program with detailed characteristics, aiming to minimize errors and buffering in location tracking.
In your company, you are selecting people to develop programs for data security and password security. I have knowledge in the case of security programs, but there are definitely things to learn and things to supplement. In this regard, I will work as a person who learns by practicing development with a humble heart. I will make small efforts at the beginning, but in the end, I will grow into a person who will improve the added value of your company even more than before.
