I am absolutely,
positively, grateful for the friends I have made because of the CSC courses.
Every step I take to improve myself is guided by their support and
encouragement. I can honestly say that I wouldn't even be moderately
comfortable or successful learning the lecture concepts with solely the Prof
and TA; I'd probably be insecure about asking potentially stupid questions, or
wasting too much of their time. (I know there are others who feel this way, so
put your hands up. Don't be shy!)
I believe that's the
main goal of the weekly labs; to meet other people who can help you, and in
turn, you can help. It's a great way to build skills and learn new things,
because I for one sure need those and find them so useful.
For example, I'm
glad to have met and befriended my lab partner. I arrived late on the first
day, running from a class across campus, so everyone was already grouped up.
Luckily for me, my partner volunteered to be stuck with me, and we've been a
pretty good pair since.
What I observe
during our lab exercises is that we tend to fix each other's mistakes, and walk
each other through solutions we think are right. We usually understand concepts
that the other partner doesn't, so we teach each other, which is pretty cool, too.
(It gives us each the opportunity to feel smart). We are pretty critical of
each other as well; thinking of any possible way our ideas can fail. If we can
find faults in our work, it's probably a cakewalk for the TA grading us, right?
(We know that because our TA has found tons of mistakes in our code).
Anyway, just to
reiterate, I'm so glad that I have so many people to support me through my
learning experience. I believe that my success is directly proportional to the
number of mistakes I've made. (So accept your mistakes! You're making
progress!)
