A First week in coding: sets, strings, integers and many errors

This is a photo of the STEM building at Texas A&M. I took it Monday of last week, excited for my first day of “being an engineer.”

That morning, I biked down to “Zachary” extra early ensuring I could meet all my new classmates and teachers. Walking up the elaborately designed staircases, state-of-the-art classrooms, and never ending Starbucks, I felt a long way from the gray uninspired humanities building; being a psych major, starting a CS minor here felt like walking into a different university.

But as I strolled into the supposed classroom, I was met with a strange image: students all sitting down outside waiting for an adult to open the door; weird. 

Approximately one second later all our phones dinged off.

“Class is canceled until Monday.”

Nice. I guess I'll try coding next week…

In all seriousness, after the first “real” week of python, I have some thoughts.

“And what's psychology got to do with CS?”  you may ask. I don’t know either, but I always like experimenting so I thought I’d take a crack at this.

Here are some insights after week one:

Computers are dumb💾

Yeah, it's weird to say because you think that the programs which run the stock market, transport hundreds of humans in the air, and allow anyone to communicate from across the world would be genius. But not exactly. 

Computers are a lot like my kids I coach at work; if I don't give the most precise directions on what to do, they don’t move. I've already torn my head off on a few assignments not realizing the answer, only to realize I forgot a key comma or period. Every. Minute. Pixel. is important; or else the program just won't run.

But like coaching, it’s definitely rewarding. Seeing my code execute each line correctly is a lot like watching a theater play run perfectly after suffering through hundreds of dry rehearsals.

Contrasted Learning🧠

Something unique I realized flipping between psych and CS throughout the week: the effect of studying two wildly different subjects at once. I find the switch from writing to psychology to programming fascinating, as it stimulates different parts of my brain; a sort of second world I can escape to.

Frustrated with your code? Can’t understand action potentials in neurons? Having problems crafting that perfect sentence?

No problem, I just flip between these projects and it allows me to stay sane.

And more interestingly, this doesn’t tire me out. Instead, it feels like I'm flexing another muscle. 

Among the running community, there is this saying that triathlons are much easier than marathons due to the strain being distributed across a variety of limbs rather than solely on one.

I feel this exact concept studying python and neuroscience; utilizing different muscles, rather than just constantly burning a single one out. 

So I recommend trying this. Wherever you are in your studies - high school, med school, undergrad - find a new passion. Learn something completely new; stimulate the whole brain.

My plans📈

During some of these first days of passing lectures, following the textbook, and banging my head on homework, I've tried to remember one key thing: why am I doing this.

Here's what i'm narrowing down: 

Short term

In the future (once I really know what I'm doing) I hope to code this blog on my own domain; quitting Squarespace. I pretty much lose money on this website, so why not. I'll definitely have to also learn some deep HTML and CSS before I can design this website on my own; so it’ll be a minute.

Long term

Further down the line, what I really hope to achieve is combining both my studies: psychology and programming. I am still enamored by Virtual Reality and seeing as it incorporates both computers and neuroscience, it might be the best path for this. Even the (not so sci-fi) brain-computer interfaces seem fascinating, so there is definitely a lot to research in this field.

But like most of college, this is the process of experimentation. I have no set plan for coding; I want to step my foot into as many worlds as possible and see which one I like, possibly even combining them. 

That’s pretty much been my first week. This will be a fun string of posts to continually update in the following semester/year/years of learning. I keep hearing about this insane difficulty curve coming and honestly, I'm excited. As of now, it's all been the very basics.

If it's anything like writing words, writing quality code is just going to take daily habits.

As for the website; I’ve got a huge project in the works, and I will reveal it in the coming months.

Big things are coming, that's all I’ll say for now.