Personal Narrative: Finding Meaning

In sixth grade, I made my first game in Scratch. In that game, Orgo the Blue Banana, the player controlled a blue banana who had to defend itself against an onslaught of yellow bananas while Mission Impossible music played in the background. My game was an instant hit among my friends, and I soon released the sequel, Orgo Unleashed, complete with a boss, cheats codes, and even more evil bananas. Not long afterward, I learned Javascript and Python through Codecademy.com. Very quickly, however, Codecademy grew boring: Because it primarily taught syntax, each lesson started to feel the same. Freshman year, I discovered CS50, Harvard’s introductory computer science course, on Edx.com, where I learned deeper concepts like algorithmic efficiency and pointer arithmetic. Here was the true beauty of computing: not just learning syntax, but really understanding the technical underpinnings, not just what worked, but why it worked. By teaching those deep concepts, CS50 gave me a taste of what computer science has to offer.

Growing up with a father in the military, you move around a lot more than you would like to. I was born just east of St. Louis in a city called Shiloh in Illinois. When I was two years old my dad got the assignment to move to Hawaii. We spent seven great years in Hawaii, we had one of the greatest churches I have ever been to name New Hope. New Hope was a lot like Olivet's atmosphere, the people were always friendly and there always something to keep someone busy. I used to dance at church, I did hip-hop and interpretive dance, but you could never tell that from the way I look now.

After imagining I was a coding supervisor, I will provide answers throughout the paper to the following questions:

Over my years of school, one big influence on me has always been sports. Ever since a young age, I have always enjoyed playing and watching sports. In my four years in high school, I have fell in love with the sport of lacrosse.

Hi everyone my name is Kyle and it is nice to see all the people interested in this course. I have been interested in coding for quite some time now but I have never gotten around to attempt to learn it. So to sum it up I have practically no coding experience but now that I am in a course such as this I can begin to learn the basics of one of the languages and boy am I eager to learn.

Entering community college with little programming experience, I was eager to learn. I registered for my first programming class excited, with a fresh mind. My professor introduced the class to our first program, "Hello World." Instantly, I was hooked. As I uncovered the complexities of problem-solving and the importance of proper syntax, my love grew stronger. Eventually, with experience in C++ and JAVA, another professor presented a life changing opportunity to me.

Sharon Chapain began her first two years of college at the University of Florida, where she pursued different career paths. At her father’s request she enrolled in some computer courses, where the first class in the course was a programming class. In this class Sharon felt completely out of her element, for most of the students in this class had been pursuing and working with computers their whole life. Sharon didn’t feel that this class was where she was meant to go in her career. She subdued the computer courses and focused on the basics.

He twiddles with his pen, back and forth, clicking it only so often. He speaks with clarity, and confidence, occasionally pausing in between, but he makes his point clear. “My best strength is my logical ability. If there is a problem, I will find a way to solve it.”, exclaims Christian. He aspires to be a programmer at Google, a multi-billionaire company that possesses some of the greatest minds of innovation and problem solving of our time. His passion started from the early age of 4, when he was introduced to computers by his own volition, while at the same time being inspired by his father, who also holds a technological position at his workplace. His love of programming and coding stems from not only his early roots, but as well as his pastimes such as videogames, in which he tinkers with, and enhances them for his own enjoyment.

In addition to studying at the University of Wollongong, I am a tutor, under the University's Indigenous Tutorial Assistance Scheme, for first year Computer Science students, where I tutor indigenous students in CSCI124 Applied Programming, CSCI110 W3 Technologies and MATH121 Discrete Math, in addition to also running the Hour of Code program at the University of Wollongong's International House.

If I were to write the story of my life so far, I would title it “Diving Deeper”. Throughout my life, I have been through many tough circumstances, and taken chances on the road less traveled, all culminating in an interesting journey that has lead me to where I am today. Specifically, in my college decision this past year, I chose to take a less favorable path by enrolling in courses at a community college for a year before transferring to a university, in order to save money and redirect my life a bit. Although I went into this year with fears of loneliness, I combatted those feelings by trying things I have never had the guts to do, such as getting a drastic haircut and learning how to drive, and found deeper pieces of myself along the way.

Previously, I attended the Code @TACC program, where I learned interesting concepts of coding through programming languages like Linux and Python. I also programmed robots, circuit boards, and computers, all the while bonding with other girls my age aspiring to change the world through science and technology. To further

As we waited for the competition, I started to learn how to write proper code, in RobotC, a C based programming language. I had already learned how to read and comprehend the language, but we our lead programmer had graduated the previous year. Mr. Carr saw the aptitude I had in programming and pushed me to learn how to write the code. I learned how to write in RobotC in eight weeks. Eventually I would be

Throughout my educational journey, I constantly hone my knowledge in computer science. There is not a day where I did not polish my skills.

Although the programs were not easy, I could let loose and let my imagination in addition to my creativity take control of myself. Throughout my high school years, I have gone through some challenges such as depression among others, but they were never the types of challenges that I was provoked by until it came to the task being computer science. Computer science caused me to struggle while enjoying it at the same time; Subsequently, I was able to program the way my heart desired to program. All throughout my earlier life, I was always told how to complete tasks such as with math, English, even down to the manner of coloring; Nevertheless, computer science was different as I could develop a program in a million different ways with a million different lines of code. In a way, programming granted me the freedom that I had secretly sought after without even realizing that I sought after it myself. Computer science allows me to let loose and be myself, which is the reason that I want to become a software engineer after I graduate from

This Code.org certificate demonstrates my completion of the Accelerated Course on the Code website. I worked through 20 different stages in order to learn how to write and utilize code. Learning to code is important because it teaches new ways to test ideas as well as solve problems. Coding takes a lot of patience which is a skill that everyone should acquire and is one that I will need in order to be a good teacher. By completing this course, I am participating in local and global learning communities to explore creative applications of technology to improve student learning.