01 · Talent
Talent Competency
The capstone project with Qualaces Inc on their product Jobque.ai over two semesters was the experience where everything I had learned across all my other competencies was tested in the real industrial world. I independently designed and deployed a resume management microservice, built the Chrome extension backend for logging job source and fixed critical production bugs that were silently failing in the job search Lambda as part of a five person engineering team sponsored by Aakash Patel. The experience connected to my other GCSP experiences directly since the habit of breaking big problems into smaller solvable pieces that Dr. Craig Hardgrove had introduced in FSE 150 was essential because I used it to design the resume management system. The service oriented mindset I had developed in EPICS made me think carefully about data privacy and user trust in every architectural decision I made. ENT 360 also showed up here since working closely with a startup sponsor taught me that every technical decision has a business consequence and that the ability to defend an architectural choice to a non technical stakeholder is just as important as the choice itself. The capstone connects to Joy of Living through Jobque.ai's core purpose since finding a job is one of the most stressful transitions a young person goes through and a platform that delivers real time job alerts eliminates hours of manual searching and gives job seekers more mental space to focus on interview preparation rather than constantly hunting for new openings. I am extremely proud of talent competency because it proved to me that I had grown into an engineer who could operate independently at a professional level.
02 · Multidisciplinary
Multidisciplinary Competency
My GCSP journey began with the Multidisciplinary Competency through the FSE 150 and SOC 334 courses. FSE 150 was an interesting class since it exposed me to experiences I never would have had in a regular engineering course. I attended guest lectures from researchers across completely different fields, participated in a security roleplay where I played the Governor of Arizona, and read research papers outside my major for the first time. I also had a one on one conversation with Dr. Konrad Rykaczewski about his research on frost formation, and that meeting eventually led to a research offer from his team. SOC 334 complemented that by leading me to think about the relationship between technology and society through weekly discussions and a research project on the impact of Generative AI on the arts community. Both the courses planted an important role in my entire GCSP journey which is that technical knowledge alone is not enough to make an impact since an engineer who does not understand the society he is building for will always fall short of helping it. I connected both courses to Joy of Living because understanding people and society makes engineering more impactful and meaningful rather than just being technical and functional. If I had to pick one competency that changed the way I think more than any other, it would be this one since it completely changed the way I approach every problem I encounter.
03 · Social Consciousness
Social Consciousness Competency
My EPICS service learning experience through FSE 104 and FSE 404 was the first time my engineering skills were used entirely in service of someone else's problem rather than my own academic goals. I worked on the ASU Transcripts project where my team used Amazon Textract and image processing techniques to automate the extraction of information from high school transcripts for the ASU Admissions Department. The technical work was challenging since no two transcripts had the same format, but I realized the solution would have a lot of human impact since faster admission decisions directly reduce the anxiety of thousands of high school students waiting on one of the most important moments of their young lives. My experience connected directly to everything I was learning in FSE 150 about interdisciplinary thinking since the project required me to think not just about the code but about the people the code was serving. It also laid the groundwork for ENT 360 since presenting the project at Venture Devils and EPICS Elite Pitch taught me to communicate the value of a technical solution to a non technical audience since it was essential in building a business plan. The social consciousness competency shaped my Joy of Living goal in a concrete way since I could point to a real project and say this technology will make someone's life less stressful and easier and that is how I look at Joy of Living.
04 · Entrepreneurship
Viable Business and Entrepreneurship Competency
ENT 360 added a new layer to my GCSP experience since it gave me the ability to evaluate an idea not just as a technical challenge but as a solution someone would practically pay for. My venture PeerRent came from a frustrating personal experience of spending $80 on a graphing calculator I used twice, and the course taught me to take that frustration and turn it into a structured business plan with competitive analysis against Facebook Marketplace and Chegg. I also learned to design a three phase market validation strategy, a five year revenue forecast, and build an investor pitch deck. I could see the direct connection to my other GCSP experiences since the same mindset of understanding the user's real problem that I had developed through EPICS now had a financial and strategic framework wrapped around it. ENT 360 also strengthened my learnings from SOC 334 about communicating solutions to society since pitching PeerRent required me to understand not just the product but the people and the communities that I was building it for. PeerRent connects directly to Joy of Living because financial stress is one of the biggest and consistent threats to a student's quality of life and I was building a platform that removes that burden and makes daily campus life more joyful. I am genuinely proud of this competency since it gave me the confidence to think like a founder rather than just a developer. I carry that confidence with me every time I sit down to design a new system for my newer projects.
05 · Multicultural
Multicultural Competency
COM 263 and STS 332 were the competencies that consistently reminded me that the world I am building technology for is far more complex, diverse, and unequal than my computer science coursework ever acknowledged. COM 263 pushed me to think about communication, culture, and identity in a personal way through an ethnography activity at a Vista Del Sol community center where I observed a storytelling session among senior citizens from different cultural backgrounds. I also wrote a research paper on systemic racism in the American criminal justice system and had discussions about code switching that resonated with my own experience of arriving in the US and asking for tomato sauce at a McDonald's only to discover Americans call it ketchup. STS 332 further extended the awareness to a global scale through analytical briefs on food insecurity, climate change, and big data for sustainable development where I had to engage with academic research. I connected both courses directly to my other GCSP course like COM 263 since it highlighted the lessons that technical knowledge alone is not enough to serve people well. Both courses connect to Joy of Living since an inclusive society where people understand each other across cultural differences and where systemic inequalities are recognized and addressed is the only society where Joy of Living is truly available to everyone and not just the privileged people. This competency pushed me the furthest outside my comfort zone and taught me that being an engineer in today's world requires both conscience and technical skills.
Conclusion
A Better Engineer and a Better Person
I can honestly say that GCSP has made me a better engineer and a better person by forcing me to grow in different directions that a regular computer science degree never would have pushed me toward. The five competencies together gave me a complete picture of what it means to build technology responsibly, serve communities, and think beyond the code. I came into this program wanting to make lives easier and better using technology and I am leaving it with the skills, the experiences, and the mindset to actually do that.
Vision Board — Aspirations & Goals
“Success won't come overday or overnight, but it will definitely come if you will work hard every day and every night.”