Personal Narrative: The Girls Who Code Summer Immersion Program

Claddis Stoner is an eleventh grader who is academically involved in the National Honor society while also being on the Student Activities Council and a dedicated member to her high school’s First Robotics team. She has always had an interest in computers and has been investigating the fields similar to doing what she loves for a little over 7 years. She is tenacious on being a computer scientist and is determined to do whatever it takes to get her there. This includes weathering the years of school to achieve a doctorate

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.

The average person hears the word memoir and believe deeply that it is solely their memory, when in actuality it is the recalling of thoughts through influence. When I started to write this paper, I immediately thought of my graduation in May 2015. But it was hard for me to distinguish what I truly thought and what I had heard others say. So I went on to think of the summer program at Dillard through Emerging Scholars June 2015. Here, I thought this would be great, because there was no family around to tell me how great it was, but then I thought about all the other things that students and faculty had said and that made me indecisive on whether or not I wanted to continue on that path. I then decided that I should write about my first semester

I've been interested in technological things for as long as I can remember. Not things like the new iPhone or The Apple Watch, but things like coding and programming. It's crazy how you can type in a seemingly meaningless jumbles of letters and symbols and what comes out is something beautiful. During the summer of 7th grade, I took a robotics class, and we went to visit the Cedar Falls High School's First Robotics club, and see the facility that they worked in. I was the only girl that took the class, and I think I was the most intrigued with the inner workings of the club and everything that went into building that robot. Ever since that day, I've always dreamed of being the girl outsmarting all the boys on my robotics team, showing my intelligence

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

In my years spent in high school, my favorite class has been computer programming. I took the class as a sophomore without any previous coding experience. Starting out, I struggled with the basic concepts and fell behind on projects. I relied heavily on help from my teacher and my friends, and I even considered dropping the class. Faced with the decision at the semester, however, I decided to keep trying. As the second semester progressed, I gained greater understanding of the basics of coding. I became the person that others could receive help from rather than the one asking for help. By the final quarter of the school year, I was able to code with speed and accuracy. I was fortunate to win the Computer Programming Student of the Year award

The final assignment for the class brought an incredible opportunity for me to find my style in programming: we were allowed to create anything we wanted, and I wrote my first computer game, Catcher. In the game, the player catches falling objects from the sky and accumulates points to win. It was a challenging project, since I had no prior experience coding games. I had not even seen game code before, but I enjoyed it so much. The Catcher project allowed me to truly express myself through the lines of code. Through writing computer programs, I had found my

In the beginning of 2010 everything came to a stop in our lives it seemed. I was 15 years old when it happened. Apparently there wasn’t any money left to help pay for the house. My sister Christina ended up pregnant, Amber wanted to move out. My parents had to think about Elaine and I. My parents couldn’t save the house, electricity was turned off. They had to foreclose on the house. My parents literally didn’t know where we were going to live. My sisters Christina and Amber arranged for an apartment to share together. But because they did that they were unable to help my parents. This caused major resentment between my parents and my sisters. This alternatively affected me and Elaine. After they moved out we were allowed to stay in the house

From a young age, my aspirations have not been among the same as my peers. There have been a plethora of variables that have distinguished my character as I am today, from being told that I would amount to nothing, to taking part in a youth group which would change my life completely. One event in particular that impacted my young mind was a two week summer bootcamp. It was there that I realized nothing worth anything in life would come without some kind of cost or struggle. On that army base in Dublin, California I made lifelong friends, learned to work as a team, and how to persevere through a tough situation no matter how difficult the struggle may be. A team exercise that especially strikes me as vital, was rather simple in a sense. When

I am a Junior Computer Science Major, and Theatre Minor. I began programming around the age of 13. My best friend had created a Minecraft mod, and asked me if I wanted to learn how to make one as well. In high school, I started the computer science track in the spring of my freshman year rather than starting in the fall but I ended up dedicating my summer that year to creating basic Java games so I could be pushed into the next class. Throughout my time in high school, I competed in a few programming contest with notable placings. When I came to college, I skipped the introductory course by letting the professor know about the programming projects I've already completed. Programming, while a stressful and strenuous task makes me feel at peace,

Since then my passion for coding has become insatiable, but it wasn't always that way. In fact, I was initially skeptical of the significance of typing lines of letters on a screen. Often I’d ask my father: “What purpose could this possibly serve?” My father always provided me with many examples, but I never understood the potential of coding until one night when a Nor'easter raged over the East Coast.

I attended the Homecoming Trivia Night on campus at the Pub on the 30th of March, which is hosted by The Student Activities and Transition Program. It’s a weekly event where there are a variety of groups that consist of students, faculty members, and guests competing against each other to win. There is an award for every week to the winners; every Wednesday they give away $40.00 in gift cards for local stores. The game was presented by a man called Daniel who distributed paper which was numbered based on the question numbers either from one through seven or to ten. The game questions were about the celebrity cultures as athlete, actors, and historical people.

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.

While self-studying for an AP Computer Science course, I found solace in discovering the most efficient piece of code to solve the most complex of problems. I was especially intrigued when I found that programming was like solving puzzles – each piece of code is crucial for building the entire system.

However, little did I know that I would spend nearly twenty hours of my own time learning BASIC and then another fifteen hours coding and debugging the program. I quickly came to understand that, this really was not a good deal at all. Nonetheless, I stuck with the agreement. By the end of the semester, not only did I write my first computer program but also I had somehow managed to become a member of the Gilmore Jr. High School Math & Science Team. Eventually, I moved on to more advanced systems and technology. The point I want to make is that, this experience became the basis of how I would approach learning technology in the future.