The next semester, I enrolled in a Data Structures and Algorithms course which was next in the computer science sequence. I quickly decided to minor in computer science, and I just wanted to write more code. It honestly came pretty easy to me, and I had a ton of fun. Over the course of that class, I built a Tic Tac Toe script with a GUI to input pieces and a Flappy Bird clone. They had printed the code and just had us type it in and run it - I was immediately hooked. So coding was brand new to me when I took that Python class in college.Īs soon as I walked into the classroom, they had us type Python code into Idle, a text editor that comes with the Python language. My high school definitely did not have any coding classes, they barely had functioning computers! I didn't play video games or engage in activities that traditionally lead to kids learning how to code either. I thought we would learn how to use Microsoft Word and Excel - I genuinely had no idea what code was.
I had an untraditional path to writing code - I randomly enrolled in a computer science class during my sophomore year of college because I had an extra credit hour and I was curious what it was about. This story starts a few years ago in a college computer science classroom. If you are just here for the code and explanation, jump to the The Initial Approach header! Quick warning, this article will be part technical, part personal story, part cultural critique.
