Final Blog Post

It has been a year. And recounting a year takes a while (much longer than a page and the hour in which I have left to write this), so I will attempt to do justice to the impact your class has had on me. In Sci-Tech, Mr. Pace told us that his class would change our lives. It didn't. I don't know if Comp Sci changed my life (that sounds too philosophical), but I am really glad I took it and know I would miss the experiences it gave me if I hadn't. Incidentally, on the AP survey questions before every exam, Comp Sci was the only one that I said had a profound impact on my decision in what to major. I do not want to major in Comp Sci. But that's okay, because it is a very good thing to do hard and unknown things and I am glad I pushed my boundaries into practical education. That said, I think I'm gonna stay on the liberal arts side from now on. Throughout the whole year you mentioned that the farther we got along, the easier the things at the beginning would seem. I think that is true. Sorting and searching seems difficult and “Hello World” seems elementary. It seems silly to think at one point I had trouble writing that simple 3 line piece of code. In any case, I have come a long way since then and I'm happy to have made the journey. It was difficult, humbling and educational, so I think I can safely say I learned the most from your class out of all my classes this year (though perhaps not enough to get a 4 on the AP).

I don't know what you could have done better as a teacher. I am no expert on Computer Science and can't advise you on what topics to cover more; my only experience comes from the AP. I think we were all very prepared for the multiple choice. Worksheets, quizzes and tests drilled those questions into our heads. Keep up the good work, it helps. As for free response, apparently most other people liked it on the AP, but I didn't. I would request you do more free response on paper throughout the year, and cut people off from their partners earlier. Maybe let them use the powerpoints more instead. I think that would have helped me.

You should definitely give people more work. Because I didn't do a lot of the work the first semester and kind of skated by. I don't know how hard a class AP Comp Sci is supposed to be, but if it prepares most people for the AP, then I guess it succeeds regardless of difficulty. That said, I know if I really cared and didn't waste time or stare blankly at the screen, I would have achieved much more. The people who actually understand the material get it done in a fraction of the time it takes us stragglers. I don't know if the stragglers should be so accommodated for...I certainly feel that in my case my inability to get work done was a lack of effort in learning it. If someone can learn it in a second and it takes me a day then I ought to spend the day. Of course, a lot of people will just take the zero (including myself in practice more often than not...) I don't actually know what I am trying to suggest exactly, but maybe you could give weekly multiple choice packets for homework or something, I don't know. Just make the class harder to keep people like me from thinking it won't require effort.

On a nicer note, I really enjoyed having you as a teacher. I enjoyed talking to you after tutoring and I think you are a really chill guy. And thanks for letting me borrow the X-Box controllers, I am gonna get those (with the ethernet cord) back to you on Tuesday. Maybe I will have already if you don't read this this weekend.

So yeah, thank you Mr. Stephens. Thank you for being a nurturing teacher, thank you for trying time and time again to shove Java into my stubborn brain, and thank you for being a nice guy. When people ask me if they should take Computer Science I tell them that if they are good at Comp Sci they ought to take it because it will be easy. Then I tell them that if they are bad at Comp Sci they should take it anyway because it will make them a better person and they can't do too badly because Mr. Stephens is really chill. I hope you get cursed with an endless string of people like me for as long as you teach here as your reputation of chillness permeates throughout the congregations of liberal arts students. And I do hope you teach here for a while longer because I do plan to come back and visit.

Thanks for a great year. Take care, Mr. Stephens.