Blog #5

For some reason, my mind tends to explore the unknown. I always like to think in terms of what other people wouldn’t typically think about. I feel like the way my mind works impacts the way I research things, and the way I view the outside world.

For example, when I was young, every time I’d watch a cartoon or a TV show, I tend to lose my focus on the main plot and concentrate towards the specific details in the scene. I always ask myself things like “I wonder where that doorway in the background leads to.” My innate curiosity on viewing things has helped me learn how some things work as well. For example, when playing games, sometimes I would explore certain parts of a level that aren’t meant to be explored, or I would cause glitches in the game to help me understand how the game was built.

Because of the way I view things, I often think of every possible scenario when conducting research. I can relate this to programming, in a sense. As a programmer, you have to think of every possible scenario to make sure that your program works without error. Many times, you have to assume that the user of the program will try to break it at times (like I did as a kid) and you have to account for each and every single input that the user could possibly do.

I find myself searching into things to such a large extent that it often distracts me from the main focus of the research. Like I stated previously, I concentrated on the background details watching TV shows as a kid that I often missed the main plot, and the same happens to me when I research. I overanalyze and over-engineer, and even though in some cases it could be useful, the specifics often distract me from the main focus of said research.