My professional identity (Computer science)

By Adams et al.[1], professional identity is defined as sets of beliefs, attitudes and understanding about roles in a certain work. In my opinion, professional identity of people is often changed at least until 30 years old because they are quite easy to quit a job and find new environment. It means that their professional identity may be changed. However, in my case, I think I am still working on Computer science now and in the future. Therefore, in the journey towards becoming CS professionals, I need to develop a range of beliefs and attitudes of my future profession. For example, I want to become a lecturer or professor in CS, so I need deep understanding and clear attitudes in CS.

Regarding external aspects of CS professional identity, I have got bachelor degree in CS and some programming skills in Java, C. Through 4 years of my bachelor study, my programming skills and algorithms are quite good and I believe that I can study new programming language fast. Besides, I have teaching experience in some courses such as ICT foundation and C programming. However, in internal aspects of CS professional identity, I think my knowledge is enough to do research in some areas, but my research skill is not good. As a result, I do not know where are current problems, how to solve problems in practical way, and how to present my ideas and solutions to other people. even my professor.

I think I lack some skills such as communication skills, time management, and critical thinking. I can be a master of current state-of-the-art knowledge, but I can apply, analyze, and evaluate in special circumstances in which the knowledge appears. It seems that I will not have CS professional identity. I hope in my master course, I can perfect my skills. Anyway, this course - Research method in CS - benefits me in aspects of research methodologies, research processes and some soft skills.

My current research field is medical image processing and I am still working on it in the future. A method often applied in this field is experimental. I am considering how case study and focus group can be used in medical imaging.

[1]Adams et al., 2006; Lingard et al., 2002