In the Fall of 2016 I began my freshman year in college. That semester I took an introductory course in programming. Coming from a musical background, I was not aware of programming. My introductory class was taught in C++ and during the first class I was thrown into the deep end of the pool. Between all of the syntax and logic behind the code I left class everyday confused. I saw many students drop out after just a week. After not accomplishing much, I felt very discouraged I didn’t want to become a statistic, so I began to study more. Then, a lightbulb lit above my head. I realized I was bombarded with meaningless syntax that is only useful when you have a goal in mind. As much as I appreciate and respect the basics of programming, you truly won’t learn until you have a practical experience. This may mean internships to other majors but luckily for computer science majors, I could program something meaningful. I started to do more research into what was possible with programming. I learned of all the mobile apps, games, and websites that were created with programming. This piqued my interest. So, I started to take what was in my textbooks and apply it to games and smaller generic tools. Through articles, blogs and YouTube videos. I created my first game in scratch. Scratch gives the users a layer of abstraction so that they do not have to deal with code. Instead they are given a selection of blocks. The blocks must be logically arranged to make something happen on screen. Although I didn’t have to deal with code directly, this project gave me a lot of confidence in my abilities to accomplish the seemingly impossible. Because of this, I was able to come back to the basics with a different mindset. I realized syntax didn’t matter as much. The logic is what is important. Because of this realization, I wrote my programming assignments with ease and eventually received an A in the class.
