Faces on Campus – Mark Bonicillo
Veterans Day is an official United States public holiday that honors former U.S. military personnel. This holiday is observed annually on November 11. There are currently a number of military veterans enrolled at Northeastern University – Seattle, including Mark Bonicillo. We caught up with Mark to get some insight into how his experiences influenced his decision to study computer science at the Seattle campus.
Tell us a little bit about yourself.
I’m a local, born and raised in Seattle, so I know what Seattle was like before the recent tech boom! My parents immigrated to the States from the Philippines, so I’m second-generation. I did undergraduate studies at Seattle University, majoring in Philosophy. I also received my MBA from the Foster School of Business at University of Washington. After 9/11, I decided that I really didn’t want to go to law school and ended up joining the Marines. I was deployed to Iraq, Australia, and the Philippines. I was stationed in Japan for a while and got a lot of exposure to the country’s culture and picked up the language. I’ve been a Japanophile ever since.
You are a military veteran. How did your service and experience affect your decision to study at the Seattle campus?
When I was deployed to Iraq during the war, I was so impressed by how much information technology changed the way the U.S. military conducted war and how much we depended on the internet and custom-built military software. Seeing firsthand the benefits of technology (e.g., being able to call home from the middle of the desert) and drawbacks (e.g., internet going down and not being able to conduct daily military operations because the freaking internet doesn’t work) made me appreciate the importance of technology. I knew once I got out that I wanted to learn more about how computers work and eventually become part of that revolution. I knew that I had to do a more formal study of computer science other than boot camps or online tutorials if I wanted to be serious. So with my GI Bill®, I decided to explore different Master’s programs and decided upon Northeastern University.
What do you hope to achieve after you graduate?
After interning at Amazon, I received a return offer and accepted it. So I’m heading back to Amazon full-time as a software development engineer after I graduate. In the long term, I hope to help build a startup or become a well-seasoned engineer and maybe lead a small team of engineers. We’ll see.
Do you have any advice for anyone thinking about studying at Northeastern – Seattle?
Develop a curious mind about software engineering. Doing so will sustain you through the long, dark nights of debugging your programming assignment when it’s due by midnight or learning how to write a simple yet robust program in C or trying to develop a web service with your team. Genuine curiosity and appreciation of how computers actually work (e.g., how does this iPhone work?) will keep you motivated to complete the program and more importantly, develop high standards of software engineering. Oh, yes, and also get a hobby that takes you away from the computer and requires actual physical work such as hiking, rock climbing, or running.
What do you like to do in your free time?
I am an avid swimmer. This past summer, I trained for four months to do the Alcatraz swim in which you swim from Alcatraz to San Francisco. Early in October, I did the 1.3 mile swim. Apparently, there are sharks in the water but they didn’t tell me until right before the swim; I didn’t see any sharks thankfully. Besides swimming, I am an amateur piano player, focusing mostly on jazz music. Every once in a while, I’ll go swing dancing at the Century Ballroom on Capitol Hill.
Finally, what is your favorite book on computer science?
By far, my favorite book is, “Code: The Hidden Language of Computer Hardware and Software” by Charles Petzold. This book revealed the magic of how computers actually work. After reading the book, I felt like Neo finally seeing the Matrix for what it really is! Though Petzold writes about the technical nature of computers, his writing is accessible to everyone. You don’t need an engineering degree to understand his writing. Petzold’s writing is clear. He has a way of simplifying difficult technical concepts while being thorough yet not dumbing down the subject. I think this book should be required reading for CS students. It’s a classic.
GI Bill® is a registered trademark of the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA). More information about education benefits offered by VA is available at the official U.S. government website at http://www.benefits.va.gov/gibill.