March 13th, 2020
I have never hated anyone in my entire life as much as I did you. I vaguely remember seeing an old C/C++ book in my father’s book collection when I was a child. I don’t know why but I started hating you right from that moment. Maybe all those years of hearing awful stories about you. In fact, hearing those stories about you made me consider not taking Computer Science as a major. Gloria Estefan once said that “You never know what life has in store for you…” This quote most accurately describes my experience when I chose Computer Science for my path in college. Data Science was fascinating to come into Computer but the only problem I had was you.
The first semester of college didn’t require me to take any CS classes with C/C++ but the second semester was upon me before I could realize, with C++ in tow. I began CS 141, one of the hardest classes for a freshman to take(At least, that’s what I heard), and it completely changed my life from hating you to loving you. The first day of class was not just any regular day for me, but rather the day that gave me a huge confidence boost, the day where I proved to myself that I can write code that is not just in Python. The biggest credit for that gained confidence goes to my professor Reed Dale, the wizard of teaching. I like calling him that because those fifty minutes in the morning are my best and most productive moments of the day. The next biggest credit goes to my dad for explaining the material to me if I have any questions, under any circumstances.
You might be wondering, why am I thanking you? The truth is, in just eight weeks of college, you taught me life. From writing the code just in main to using multiple classes to run my program, each day you gave me a challenge to accept, a hurdle to cross, the motivation for both me and my career to grow, and the best and the surprising thing you gave me, Web-Development.. Well, I’ll admit pointers weren’t easy to crack, but I eventually got the hang of them, and learned that in life, nothing good comes easy.
Best,
Krish Bavana.