My first ever introduction to programming in C course was during my first year at UC Irvine in 2013. I didn't understand, nothing clicked, it felt like we as students were on our own. I dropped out of the course a few weeks in.
My first ever introduction to programming in Python was also during my first year and taught by Rich Pattis, author of the Karel programming language. Something clicked. TODO: why? what did Professor Pattis do that worked and motivated me.
Fast forward a few more academic quarters. I see unfamiliar faces among the relatively small group of students that have progressed through the same courses as me. I learn they are students who transferred from community colleges nearby. My observation is that they raise good questions during lectures and are high achievers.
I remembered something. Let's edit this back into the previous part. Haeun and I used to spend pretty much every weekend in either ICS lab or gateway library working on quizzes assigned in ICS 31 (hereon called ICS 31 the introductory Python course). I look back so fondly now but we used to whine about how we can't attend parties because we need to complete these quizzes (but did you even have invites to reject though). I feel so restless I need to log off and go on the elliptical or something come back soon or else