The Final

Question Set #1
Five skills a computer scientist needs...
  1. Focus
  2. Patience
  3. Determination
  4. The ability to solve problems
  5. The ability to learn from mistakes

A computer scientist must have excellent focus because you can become easily distracted in front of a computer screen, especially if what you are doing is tedious or frustrating. There were some days in class where I would get distracted and spend an hour talking about wormholes with my classmates or googling celebrities who share my birthday instead of focusing on completing an assignment because I just didn't feel like doing it that day. I thought that my assignments were taking a long time for me to complete because they were a lot of work, when, in reality, they were taking a long time because I'd let myself get distracted. On days when I really focused, I managed to finish more than an entire assignment in one day. I could imagine how computer scientists could easily get off course while working, making the ability to concentrate a really valuable skill.

It is also important for a computer scientist to learn from their mistakes. A lot of computer science and science in general is based around trial-and-error, so it's expected that scientists make mistakes. In class, I have made many mistakes, like forgetting to import Bootstrap or mislabeling something. Admittedly, I made these mistakes repetitively, but after a couple times, I stopped making them. Making mistakes while coding can be frustrating and difficult, especially because you're bound to make mistakes, that's why it's important that you recognize what mistakes you make so you can catch them earlier in the future. The best computer scientists have made enough mistakes to know how to avoid them and make their job a lot easier.
Question Set #2
Four challenges I've faced this semester...

One challenge I faced this semester was remembering things like how to use tags and how to put links and images on my pages. When we first started using Codepen, I was nervous I wouldn't be able to remember all of the terms because I've never been very good at quickly remembering new, abstract information. At first, I couldn't, but as I used them more and practiced more, I quickly knew how to use tags and insert things without having to ask a classmate or google. As soon as I stopped being afraid of tags and terms and techniques, I was able to use them with ease. I still need to work on remembering certain things, like creating margins and borders, so I'll continue to work on that next semester and in my freetime.

Another challenge I faced was trying to figure out Javascript. Like HTML and CSS tags, Javascript seemed really scary at first. I still couldn't Javascript my way out of a paper bag, but since being introduced to it, I've become a lot more confident in the things I can do with it. A lot of things are still really confusing because Javascript is so different from HTML and CSS, but I after some practice, I was able to draw connections between the two languages and understand what some things did and how. In all honesty, I probably won't continue to work with Javascript in the forseeable future because it's still pretty confusing and I'd rather work on other things, but maybe someday I'll need to know something about Javascript for school or work and I'll be able to pick it up faster than I would have otherwise because I had some experience with it this year.