3rd Year Computer Engineering Student Who is Confused – Need Direction.

Hello everyone,

As you read in the title, I'm in my 3rd year as a CE student and I am so lost and confused.

Let me give y'all some context on why it took me 3 years to get hit by the bus of doubt. Last semester break I applied for a training program in a company, I showed them everything that I have everything that I learned over the past 3 years and surprisingly they agreed. I was told to accompany the Operations Project Manager because he is the one who was said to benefit me the most. First few days were simple, he would ask me to write some code using C# to create various Windows Forms projects like login pages, spreadsheet importer, and a attendance tracker. I am completely honest when it comes to what I do and he helped me through all the code because I would sit for hours writing notes down thinking of ways on how to write my functions and classes. I then would go home spend half of the rest of my day staring and the code breaking it down and trying to understand each and every letter that was written.

A month goes by and we're approaching the end of my training. He then started telling me about his background: what got him here, how he does thing, why he does it, when he does it, how programming became his main thing and so on. I was sitting there the whole time listening to him and each time he got to tell me something new to me I'd get shocked, it's almost like reality spat right at me. This guy has achievements and knowledge that I could have never imagined someone could gain in his early 30's. He then goes on and starts asking me about my purpose and why I chose this path, this is not the part where I also get hit by a bus but rather the most calming moment for me during that whole interaction.

I love computers, I am obsessed with it's functionality and it's potential. However, I never turned any of that curiosity into knowledge that I can look at and say I did a good job. I never really tried hard enough, not because I'm not excited or thrilled, but rather due to how little I know every time I grasp a new topic. I decided since that moment that I want to learn how computers function in terms of programs from square 1. I want to know each and every part of any code I write going forward, even if it seemed small and unnecessary. Ex: how int works, how is it represented in the memory, where on the memory will it be stored, etc.

TL;DR:
I'd love if someone just gave me a guideline on why and how things are the way they are for the simplest of coding basics there is until I reach a level where I can look at a program and know exactly what's going on compiler wise and computer architecture wise.

Thanks for reading and thanks for replying in advance.