New Partner

As David both wrote in his blog post, working with a different lab partner last Thursday was tremendously helpful for me. Originally, I somewhat rudely tried to steal David from Todd, and normally I would work with David, Kelly, Diana, or Todd outside of class. I hadn’t worked with Hassan before, and I was pleasantly surprised to find that there were some aspects of coding that I understood a little better than him and could explain to him and there were other aspects of coding that he understood better and could clarify to me. This was helpful for me to see and experience because I realized that I am learning some of the concepts enough to explain them to other students and I’m not the only person who is not caught up on all the concepts or dailies. Hassan was also very honest that he really wanted us to figure out Bouncing Ball and Hud on our own even though our not getting very far on either project was frustrating for him. I could and can relate to both those sentiments: earnestly wanting to work hard and learn to do something on my own while also being discouraged when doing so doesn’t lead to a solved problem.

Speaking of the dailies, I’m almost caught up on them, which has assuaged my fear that I would be scrambling to finish them at the end of the semester, but I’m also frustrated that learning to code is still a slow process for me. Today, I watched the first three of the Daniel Schiffman videos that Scott posted for the original coding lesson. Schiffman’s videos were very helpful, and while I had watched some of them in the first few weeks of class I wish I had watched them from the beginning and in the order that Scott had posted them. I think this would have helped me grasp the coding ideas and practices a little faster. This is why it’s important not to fall behind, and to do all aspects of a course’s work.