#intro cs

[cs-experiences-blog]

By that point he had forgotten that that was my idea.

I remember one time in Intro I was with this guy who told me he liked brag to me about in high school how he was a really good coder, and he works with Java mainly so Python isn't his main thing but he still knows how to code, and so he was super confident and would always try different things like “oh I think it has to be this way” and I'd be like “well maybe we should switch this around” and he would just be like “no no no no this is how you do it” and then you try five different things and then eventually do the thing that I suggested in the beginning, which would work, and then I was just really frustrated because by that point he had forgotten that that was my idea, which was really annoying.

[cs-experiences-blog]

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After I'm done with assignment, I feel really accomplished.

[I've taken a few intro classes, like online, so it almost covered the same thing. I feel experience helped a lot when I was in intro. My prof didn't really like teach very detailed; he let us figure it out on our own, so I think my experience helped with the course.]

I really like doing the assignments for CS, because first, it’s good practice for the concepts, and second, after I'm done with assignment I feel really accomplished. Seeing it works feels great. And the final project was very fun, too, because we can...I wouldn't expect that we can do anything just after ten weeks. But I can't realized, “ooooh, I can actually do a lot with it!”

- Class of 2020

[cs-experiences-blog]

So I just remember sitting in CMC 102 for like four hours and just not being able to figure out anything. And in Intro you don't really learn how to debug, it's just you brute force everything and hope that it works out.

So I just remember sitting in CMC 102 for like four hours and just not being able to figure out anything. And like in Intro you don't really learn how to debug, it's just you brute force everything and hope that it works out. And there's no debugging tool so like that was really difficult. I wish, I kind of do which we like learn a little bit of debugging in intro, besides like print statements, which some people don't even use in Intro. But yeah, and then we like did really bad on that assignment, like I think about like a 61 or something and like that was my lowest grade thus far here. Which I found really funny, but also really sad.

And then there's a part two to that assignment, we kind of did like slightly better, but it was still like a struggle. And I'm not sure if like … maybe we should have like reached out to someone like an upperclassman or [professor name] in office hours to figure out what was going on with our code. Yeah, the more I go through this story the more I’m like, shoot, I should have went to office hours,

but that's like a very common experience from intro

Yeah like getting the really really bad grade, and like I feel like a lot of people get super discouraged and then they just kind of like derail and not care after that. But for me, I just thought it was like really silly, and like, wow, I just didn't go to I didn't try to get help and that was bad, but now I'm gonna try to do it, and I'm gonna laugh off this grade for now.

[cs-experiences-blog]

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CS is so weird...I didn’t know how to adequately prepare for the class.

CS is so weird. I was having a really hard time trying to like practice CS, because everything that I'd ever done was like completely hands-on. There were no books, there were no lectures or like -- there were lectures, but it was like lectures at the same time while doing stuff. Just like helping you with whatever you're working on. So, I was like...okay, we have readings, and do I take notes? And like...I don't know. Do I put it in a Google Doc? I didn't know how to adequately prepare for the class, and like that's partially on me for not going to the professor and asking like, “What can I do to...I don't know succeed in this class?” But I was also a first gen college student who didn't know anything about office hours, and literally thought that office hours was only if you were in trouble. That's what I thought! I didn't know really until my sophomore year that you can go to your professors, and casually ask these questions that don't really have -- you don't have to have a problem to go to your professor. I didn't really know that, so I never did. I was like, “Well, I don't think I have a problem, I think I just [have] something that I need to work on.” So, that also contributed to the downfall, but I ended up getting a D, which was terrible.

[cs-experiences-blog]

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I still remember how angry I was with the way that he talked to me.

Most of it was just him being so fucking condescending. Like...I'm used to being the person that has to teach other people. And not teach other people as if they're dumb, but just...we all come from like. First of all, there's so many fucking coding languages that you may be really really good at Java, and suck at Python. It's just, it’s different, you know? I hadn't worked with Python before, so I was just a little bit slower. I was used to the coding languages actually being a little bit harder, because of the syntax or whatever. So, I was struggling just a little bit, and I had a lot of errors, which I thought was okay. But like, since this fucking dumbass waited until the last minute to even start working on the project, we were like really stressed out and just. So, I was like -- I still remember how angry I was with the way that he talked to me -- I like lashed out on him, too, I said, “Listen, listen bitch, if you don't want to work with me that's cool but you're not going to talk to me any type of way like I'm your fucking child.”

[cs-experiences-blog]

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I reached out to him to work on a project, and he said he had already finished it.

I had someone -- a male -- who didn't want to work with me for whatever reason. I don't know why. I don't even know him that well. But I reached out to him multiple times to work on a project, and he never responded until the day before. And then he said that um...because I like sent a more urgent message, like “Hey, I don’t have time, we need to start working. This is due tomorrow.” And he said he had already finished it. So, then I was forced to either be like do I tell like my teacher or my professor that this person had already did it? And then potentially have to do the project by myself in a time [where] I already can't afford to like...go back and do another project [because] I have all these other upcoming assignments? Or do I leave it be even though that was a shitty thing to do, and I didn't learn anything from that project, and like I'm like technically like cheating or whatever? I don't know.

[cs-experiences-blog]

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I’ve been coding since I was 13, but when I took Intro it was like I didn’t know anything.

I don't know...I had already had lots of years experience with computer science. I've been coding since I was 13. I started the summer after my freshman year. I did a summer program and that was...we took a CS class every single year and then my senior year is when I got really into it. I did hackathons and went to like conferences and stuff and that's when I really decided that I wanted CS to be my career path. So I had a lot of experience with CS already and going into my intro class..because I thought like, “yeah, I've been coding but might as well start at the beginning.” Um, I think you kind of have to you anyway, so might as well. Like, yeah, you can test out, but overall just like who cares? Let's just start from the beginning, because I’d never actually been in a formal classroom. I didn’t take it in high school because I didn't have room in my schedule. So, I took it and it was...it was like I didn't know anything. It was so weird. I was like, how could I have...I don't know built so many things, and won so many hackathons, and start from the beginning, and not understand what's going on? I think it partially had to do with me being a freshman, and still not knowing how to handle like the pace of Carleton, and the expectations that Carleton sets forth. I think that was like half of it and the other half was that I just felt really uncomfortable in the environment, because all of my classes that I had taken up until now that pertained to CS I would participate all with pretty much only people of color. I had never been in an environment where the classroom reflected what the actual workforce looked like, and it was like...it was so weird. In combination with feeling like I wasn't already wasn't academically prepared for Carleton, just in the way that people like interact in a classroom, and speak, in combination with the racial factor...Intro was really bad.

[cs-experiences-blog]

Intro seems like it has the most even split between men and women, but it becomes more male-dominated in higher-level classes, both in the sense that there's more men than women, and also they talk more in class. 

I've had a lot of experience with CS, though I'm not a major - taken something like five classes and also graded a few sections of Intro. Intro seems like it has the most even split between men and women, but it becomes more male-dominated in higher-level classes, both in the sense that there's more men than women, and also they talk more in class. It's not because the women aren't capable - I should know, as far as Intro is concerned - but rather it's a problem with the culture around CS.