Computer Science I was, in a word, frustrating. This is not to say, however, that I did not enjoy it at times or value what it taught me. Overall, the class was a good learning experience because it made me tackle a subject that I had no previous knowledge of nor any natural instinct about.
The class started out easy. Scratch and Alice at first appeared to be confusing and overwhelming since they were so brand new to me, but after doing many labs with them, I got the hang of it. I did not, however, understand how they were preparing me for Java. I also did not know how difficult and complicated Java would be.
Before Java, we used Jeroo, which appeared simple on the surface but proved to be frustrating when I had to generate one code for multiple scenarios. I had to do this for the final, and it took me a long time to get my final grade up to an 80 for that reason. I got bored with the simplicity of Jeroo because all we used were the Jeroo, water, and flowers, which I found to be entirely unrealistic and not very useful.
Once we got to Java, I became completely overwhelmed. I tried to digest all of the information from each PowerPoint presentation, but I could not seem to translate that information into actual code. Once someone showed me how to do it, I could understand most of it, but I don't think there was a single Java lab that I did on my own. I was now realizing that computer science would probably never be one of my strong subjects.
I was relieved when I was in the half of the class that switched to Python. Even though it was like Java, it didn't require nearly as much code and formatting. It was a lot easier for me to understand Python, although I still needed help sometimes. I like Python a lot better than Java because different methods are more similar to each other than in Java and everything in Python is color coded, which is extremely helpful to me.
After Python, we switched to AppInventor, by Google. I really like this program because it shows how computer science is directly applicable to the real world. Even though AppInventor labs do not involve us directly writing out the code, we still have to figure out how it works and which blocks to use with the help of the PDF. It was really fun to get all of the different apps working because I felt like the gap between the smart phone app inventors and me was becoming a little smaller.
Overall, pretty much the only thing I wish had been different about the class is the pace of it. The first few programs we used before Java were easy enough to follow and do labs in, but once we got to Java, I feel like the class moved too quickly for me to be able to understand everything. I'm generally a fast learner, so this was unusual for me and it made me feel uneasy. For next year, I think it would be helpful if the students had more than just PowerPoint presentations to learn from. Maybe a more general lecture on the whiteboard would be beneficial. All I know is that I learn better from writing things down according to what the teacher says than from just reading tons and tons of text.
I'm glad I took computer science this year because I knew almost nothing about the subject beforehand. As a student at a school that highly values knowledge of technology, I felt a little left out of all the groups like robotics, Sci-O, etc. Although I now know that I wouldn't really like being in any of these groups because the material is difficult, I'm still glad that I was exposed to the science behind all the technology I use everyday. It was definitely a great learning experience and maybe I'll try learning more about it in college.
No comments:
Post a Comment