Senior student Gabriel Reynolds is a longtime varsity Rocket League player for Boise State. He’s a common sight around the esports arena, sometimes showing up every day of the week to practice Rocket League. More commonly known as “Gil” which is his gamer tag or in game name, Reynolds is nearing the end of his undergraduate journey. Over the past few years, Reynolds has given his all not only in Rocket League, but in pursuing his challenging, yet rewarding Bachelors of Science in Computer Science, in the College of Engineering.
“I chose my major because I was into gaming all throughout middle and high school so it seemed like a logical step for me to take as my major. [I] took some coding classes in high school to see if I liked it and it stuck,” Reynolds said in an interview.
As a coveted STEM degree (Science, Technology, Engineering, & Mathematics), a Bachelor’s Degree in Computer Science is a highly valuable degree. This is even more the case in the Treasure Valley, where companies like Micron and Meta are investing over $16,000,000,000 in facility construction. Furthermore, according to the Idaho Business Review, approximately 85% of Boise State’s Computer Science graduates remain employed locally after 5 years of graduation. Reynolds has dedicated many hours over the past few years working on complex coding projects with other students.
“In my data structures class our final project was called B-Tree. Me and my group must have spent 40+ hours on that project alone. It was really rewarding when we got it done. For sure the most memorable project I have had to date,” said Reynolds.
Reynolds best memory was passing his “Digital Systems” class. A class which studies, according to Boise State’s catalog, “Number systems, Boolean algebra, logic gates, Karnaugh maps, combinatorial circuits, flip-flops, registers, counters, sequential state-machines and introduction to Hardware Description Languages (HDL).”
“That was such a unnecessarily hard class and I was so happy it was over,” said Reynolds. “Made some good friends trauma bonding in that class.”
Reynolds is set to graduate in 2025. He is hoping to become a Scrum Master or have any active role in software development. Specifically, Reynolds shows interest in pursuing AI development.
Written by Jacob Palmer