A CS progress blog?
Why this blog, my current progress, where I started, and who I am
🤔 Why this blog?
I'm not a particularly talented programmer, nor have I been doing this stuff since I came out of the womb, so I figured having a place to document my progress would be informative both for myself and for others out there who might relate.
On this blog, I want to share the resources and types of things I'm doing each day to get better at CS. I have three goals:
Improve at Java
Improve at DSA
Improve at Leetcode
The path to making progress on these is quite nonlinear, so I plan to document the resources I use and the things I do as I blindly stumble around trying to "get good".
Finally, I also wanted to use this as a place for me to reflect and share my thoughts on my progress. That could mean reviewing a particular resource, or a discussion on hustle culture. I'll be open about my own CS struggles, too.
🏁 Where I started
I had very minimal experience with HTML and CSS in high school — just enough to code my personal website through a lot of trial-and-error.
Coming into CS 201 — Duke's data structures and algorithms course, taught in Java — this spring semester was very rough for me at first. I felt very out-of-place among people who seemed to know all of the answers and data structures.
I also felt very behind compared to some of my friends and peers who came straight in and took CS 201 their first semester, last fall.
⌛ Where I'm at
In the past 45 days, I've been working hard to "catch up" and feel more comfortable with the content. I've come to the conclusion that CS is what I want to do, and I want to get good at it.
This blog is starting on Day 45 — the 45th day after February 18. That day in February was when I first decided to get serious about CS and began reading my class textbook, starting from the very beginning.
Since then, I've completely read through and taken notes on my course DSA textbook. The CS 201 course has gotten much easier, I'll say that. I've also done more research into the CS industry and my next steps. But obviously, I still have a long way to go on achieving my goals. So come along for the ride!
My name is Bob Qian. I'm a first-year CS student at Duke.
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