Anatoliy Babkin

Biography

Childhood

I was born in Donetsk on 17th November, 1987 at 3.30pm local time. From early childhood, I remember quite a lot of events, which is always surprising to my relatives. I began to speak from an early age.

I went to Kindergarten from when I was one and a half years old and I was the first one in my group who learned to read. In general, I liked to discover new things. I looked forward to going to school.

I didn't really like the kindergarten at first because I couldn't get used to sleeping during the day and didn't like eating much during the day too. However, being an adult, I now realize that childhood was the happiest time in my life; joyful and carefree. Today, I would gladly become small again and return to the Kindergarten.

School

At the age of 7, I went to secondary school specialized in the study of foreign languages. However, I quickly became disappointed in the school system. Being born in the autumn, I could have started school one or even perhaps two years before I actually did but my parents had other ideas. I don't regret going to this school because I received a good knowledge of English, which I practiced with some foreigners. I had English lessons every day at school.

After buying my first computer, I became seriously interested in games; I played often and a lot.

In the tenth year of school, I began writing my own scripts and add-ons for some games. This may have influenced my choice of university degree. This was my first experience in programming and it turned out fairly well - modern elevators, firearms and other small gaming devices started to appear in fantasy RPGs. As time went on, my fascination with computer games was reflected in a decrease in my general academic progress but despite this, I finished school with high grades.

University

I had several doubts in choosing my degree subject. I wanted to study software development but my parents advised me to study hardware as well. At first, I regretted it but eventually, I realized that it wouldn't change anything. I finally became a student at Donetsk Technical University. I took informatics and mathematics. I didn't have any problems with informatic but I wasn't so good at mathematics in spite of attending special courses in this subject. The course I did in informatic was led by Karina Yusupova, a teacher at the Computer Sciences and Technologies Faculty. Thanks to her, I developed excellent algorithmic thinking and really started getting into programming. As a result of all this, I became a student of CS-05A. The first year was the most difficult as so many new things came into my life.

By the second year, I had adapted to university life and education was not so difficult for me, everything seemed to work itself out and also my responsibility had a positive effect.

Moreover, in the second year, I started Military school and today, I'm a junior grade Lieutenant reservist.

Approaching the third year, I made up my mind to self-educate myself and began studying modern technology and programming; first C# and later WINAPI/MFC by myself.

In the fourth year, my attitude to software development changed dramatically. It all began after I installed the Linux operating system on my computer - it was a distro OpenSUSE 11.1.

As a result, almost all of my free time was taken up in setting up Linux and compiling some stuff fot it. After a while, I decided to change direction again and concentrate on cross-platform development. I started learning Java and С++ library Qt. The ease and convenience of Qt struck me - I hadn't seen such a tool before. Even in using just one platform, Qt wins among other sophisticated tools like MFC. Linux has also changed my attitude to using software - now I prefer to use free and cross-platform software like OpenOffice in stead of MS Office, GIMP instead of Photoshop etc.

In general, I enjoyed studying at university; I studied well and attained good marks and results. I also finally realized that I was more interested in software development than hardware.

I finished university with highest average mark among CS specialists and passed the final State Examination with distinction. I received a Bachelors Degree with Honors.

I tried to choose the area of network programming and databases in master's work because I felt the need to increase my skills in these areas. I also want this to involve the cross - platform area. This final idea was given by instant messaging ICQ, because of the large amount of spam and problems with exceeding connection limits.

Future Plans

In the near future, I plan to improve my knowledge of English and to take the First Certificate in English examination.

After graduation, I'll probably get a second degree, connected with Economics.

I hope to get an interesting job, ideally connected with software development.