It’s the middle of July and I just ended a 4 1/2 -week graduate course in computer science at Georgetown. Why am I writing this in a blog post? Because I wanted to share this experience.
Before I go into any detail, something you should know:
Would I recommend taking a condensed course in computer science over the summer? No.
Would I recommend taking a computer science course in general? Yes.
Like a lot of people, even when I was in high school and undergrad I felt I missed the boat to learn computer programming. But I’m happy to say that now, as a graduate student, I’ve finally learned (accepted) that it’s never too late to learn anything — you never know how difficult something is until you try it.
That said, computer science isn’t something you can learn by osmosis. It requires practice. Lots of practice. So, if you’re thinking about learning, don’t take a condensed course like I did— especially if you have a full-time job and are taking it at the graduate level (With all math and comp sci grads…) You’ll thank yourself later when you realize you’ve taken a longer path that’s allowed you to absorb the material and learn more.
Despite the brief course, I’m grateful for the short and intense learning experience I had. I was forced to immerse myself in all things C++ and OOP — and true immersion isn’t something you can fake. Like any foreign language, programming languages require you to spend a lot of time actually using them. There’s no easy way to pick it up other than using it. Learning a language is hard and it helps when you’re able to talk about it and learn from experts in a class environment. Courses also help you budget your time and projects in a proven sequence. If it isn’t obvious, I’m a fan of courses because you gain the benefit of sharing and learning from experts and others in the class.
If you can’t afford to take a course, I know a lot of programmers who are self-taught who are great at what they do. Whether you decide to take a course or not, my only advice is that you dedicate a lot of time to learning programming. It’s time-intensive, but it will pay off in the end. You can’t BS your way around it.
Why I’m writing this
This class I took was kind of the beginning of a major overhaul of the way I’ve gone about teaching myself web development and design techniques in the past. Like a lot of people, I’ve learned a lot by dabbling in tutorials and teaching myself as I go. Even before this class, I wasn’t exactly a novice in web development, but this summer I’m trying to ‘step my game up’ — and in doing so, I’m going to share my projects and works in progress on this blog.
Why programming?
I’ve found learning web development and programming to be extremely rewarding in my work as a multimedia designer for news applications. Having the ability to build and execute multimedia products from start to finish has been an extremely satisfying aspect of my job. It used to be that web projects I wanted to do ended up taking forever for someone else to develop or wouldn’t get done at all because of the lack of expertise in my department. Now, I’m able to create whole web pages on the fly. Knowledge is power. And programming is problem solving. It teaches you not only how to literally build something, but also how to logically solve problems in ways most people aren’t used to.
I’m hoping to use this blog to keep track of my current and upcoming web design and development projects so you can see what I’m up to. I’ll also post a note about some things I’ve done in the last year or so, but this blog is really going to be about going forward. Please feel free to let me know know what you think and ask me questions!
