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- Year Of Graduation: 2025
- College/University: Purdue University
- Major: Computer Science
What do you do for a living, or how are you supporting yourself right now? What led you to this point in your career journey?
I’m currently a master’s student at Purdue. I actually graduated early, so I graduated in 2025, last May, and I started in 2022. I was only in undergrad for three years. That accelerated approach to my degree was part of my motivation for doing a master’s, because I kind of still wanted my fourth year of college. Especially in this economy, it felt like it made more sense at the time when I was applying for grad school and also trying to find a full-time job last year.
All the signs pointed to me staying in school for one more year, taking advantage of the networking I could still do and getting a better degree in the process. I also pivoted majors. I was a computer science student before, which was a lot more difficult than what I’m doing now, since I’m doing a business master’s.
At the time, I wanted to do a business master’s because I was personally interested in the actual business process from my internships and professional experience. I felt like that was the part I always struggled with. I was always good on the technical front, but understanding the whole business process, like why we’re doing some of these things, that was my motivation.
I touched on this a little bit in my story, but I was already implicitly figuring this stuff out during my professional work. In retrospect, I don’t think I needed an external degree to prove that I had the skill set and ability. It just wasn’t spelled out on paper. I wasn’t a business major, but I had that knowledge because I needed it to succeed in my previous roles.
So it ended up feeling like a bit of a misalignment between what the degree could offer and what I already had, if that makes sense.
Why did you choose your undergrad major?
I’ve always kind of been into computers, even in my childhood. I guess I secretly knew I’d probably end up in a tech-adjacent field in the future. But it wasn’t until late high school that I really had to narrow things down. Even back then, the value of a computer science degree still felt questionable. I remember thinking about that risk.
I actually got really interested in data science, or more applied data and statistics within computer science. That mostly came from my hobbies. I’m really into gaming, especially Teamfight Tactics and League of Legends. I found a lot of value in the stats-driven aspects of those games, and that led me down a rabbit hole of understanding how to translate raw data into something useful.
I found value in that, and I wanted to be able to provide that kind of insight for more people.
What does purpose mean to you? Do you think you’re living a purpose-driven life?
I think I’ve definitely had to fight to find purpose. In undergrad, everything was very rigid. You work through your degree, try to find an internship, improve your skills so you can become employed. And that worked. I had success. I found my previous work experiences, I graduated, it worked.
But trying to repeat that this year with my master’s has felt different. It doesn’t really feel like I’m learning anything anymore, in a way, and I just feel jaded from the job search. I’ve definitely had to pivot away from that very structured, rigid reward system into something where I actively create my own goals and try to pursue things that fulfill me beyond just doing assignments for this degree. I’ve had to shift that sense of reward and purpose in order to actually feel fulfilled.
I’ve been finding a lot more value in working on my own side projects. I spent a lot of time over winter break, and even a bit last year, working on creative hobbies, like making Instagram and TikTok edits, things like that. Just projects where I have full ownership and accountability.
I’ve found so much more value in that than just hoping my institutionally given degree will make me feel better once I get it. It’s definitely more challenging because the deliverables for self-driven work are a lot more ambiguous. Is success getting 10 likes on TikTok? It’s not the same fanfare as saying, “Oh, I got my bachelor’s,” or “Oh, I got my master’s.”
It’s actually made me question how I view those kinds of rewards. Am I still gaining value from these small, invisible projects? For sure. It’s definitely given me a stronger sense of purpose than just slogging through school and hoping something good happens at the end of the day.
What’s your biggest struggle right now? What led to it, and how are you moving forward?
I guess it comes back to the idea of purpose. I remember feeling so much apathy toward my program because I deeply value education and putting in the effort. So when half of my cohort is not putting in effort on assignments and still passing, it feels terrible. It devalues the point of the degree as well as any educational aspects that could potentially be there in the first place.
Because of that, I definitely had to shift how I viewed fulfillment and how I rewarded myself, or I would have gone insane. I can’t just be angry all the time at my program and think, “why did I do this?” If I did that, it would be terrible.
How do you define being a successful person?
I think, at least for me, success is just being happy. Having fulfillment come from something I’m responsible for, that’s my biggest definition of success.
The issue with that belief is that if you tie it to something like a job search or an external degree, there are so many external factors affecting it. That makes it really hard, because if you tie success to getting a job, and you’re applying, right now I’m at application 600, it’s not going to feel very successful, even though you don’t have full control over it. That’s why I’ve tried to pivot how I view fulfillment and success.
If we traveled three years into the future of your life, what do you want to achieve? What would you hope has changed?
Other than the obvious answer of getting a good job, I’d want to be at a point where I’m able to help people who are in a similar spot to where I am now.
At school, I’m kind of a peer mentor for undergrads and freshmen, and I actually really enjoy that job. I don’t get paid that well, but I still find a lot of value in helping people get situated. Two of my closest friends are undergrads, and I’ve really enjoyed helping them through their computer science journey and helping them feel a little more comfortable in this crazy market and the post-grad life they’re about to enter.
I really hope to find a way to provide that kind of support for people in the future. I’ve had figures like that in my life before, and I want to be able to maintain that role for others.
What’s the biggest lesson or piece of advice you wish you’d known earlier?
I think one of my biggest lessons throughout my entire college journey was understanding confidence. When I started freshman year, I had no idea what I was doing, and I don’t think most people did either. It wasn’t until I actively started forcing myself into situations, even when they were anxiety-ridden, that I realized confidence comes after you do something, not before. It’s not an inherent trait.
I gained a lot of confidence just by exposing myself to as many unique situations as possible and trying to meet as many people as I could. If I could go back in time, I’d tell my younger self to just mess around as much as you can. Even if you think something is stupid, like going to a random club meeting, the fact that you went shows you tried to make that connection and advocate for yourself instead of just saying, you have no friends. It’s about finding value in things you might initially see as unnecessary.
I remember there was a career fair my freshman year for computer science students. All the upperclassmen were saying freshmen never get internships, but I still wanted to go. I knew I probably wasn’t going to get an internship, and I didn’t, but I went for the experience of talking to recruiters and exposing myself to a busy career fair setting. It was scary, but I still remember it to this day, and I’m glad I went. I wasn’t spooked by people saying you’re not going to get anything. I didn’t get anything, but I still got value from the act of going.
Connect With Rygel
- LinkedIn: @RygelGinete
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