CompSci 108 - Spring 2009

Coursework

Fred's Basic Info:

• Name: Fred E. Ehrsam
• Hometown: Concord, MA
• Year at Duke: Junior
• Favorite Links: Failblog, The best blog ever
• Other Courses: Compsci 296 - Network Securities, Soc. 155 - Organizations/Management, Compsci 196 - Indep. Study

Computer Science Autobiography:

• When did you first start using a computer? - Probably around age 4 or 5 when I tried to play Glider, the old school Mac paper airplane game
• What kinds of computers have you used? - Speaking strictly about what is commonly referred to as a computer, I used Macs until about 12 and have been using PCs since
• How do you use computers on a daily basis? - For the basic things most students use, including email and communication, word processing, etc, along with programming
• What event(s) made you interested in studying computer science? - There is no specific event I can point to, I simply find CS to be both interesting and a solid foundation for almost any future career
• What do you think a computer scientist does on a daily basis? - This strongly depends on the particular computer scientist - some may program all day, others might be doing some kind of sociology-related research
• Describe your best (or worst) programming experience; what made it so good (or so bad)? - My worst programming experience was probably writing the MIPS interpreter in CS 104 last semester since it was essentially an extremely complicated parsing system. I learned a lot about assembly from the project but it was fairly tedious to implement.
• Describe your most (or least) favorite programming project; what made it so appealing (or so unappealing)? - My CSURF independent study project is essentially one giant programming project at this point and it's probably my favorite because it involves so many different distinct areas of programming
• How do you see yourself using computers in the future? - Certainly for their basic funcationality that I use them for now, possibly to continue programming, probably as a data analysis/presentation tool

Questions? E-mail me: