CompSci 108 - Fall 2009
Megan Heysham
CompSci 108 Projects:
Hi! I am from Asheville, NC, but I went to high school at the NC School of Science and Math, just down the road from Duke. I am currently a junior.
This semester, besides CompSci 108, I am taking:
Outside of class I spend my time on DAGGER (Duke Association for Greater Gaming Education and Recreation), my fraternity (Psi Upsilon), Geocaching when I can, and a few TV shows.
My computer science autobiography:
I don't remember if I ever used a computer at the elementary school I went to before 3rd grade, and I don't remember having a computer at home before that time either. When I moved to North Carolina in 3rd grade, we started going to the computer lab occasionally during school to learn how to type and play educational games. During that same time, we got the Internet at home, though I didn't use the computer much. A few years later I got my own computer, but it wasn't connected to the Internet.
Up until July 2008, I only owned PCs and had only occasionally used Macs at school. Now I have a Mac (with a small partition for Windows) and a PC (equally partitioned for Windows and Linux).
On a daily basis, I use computers for checking on and completing homework, as well as grading for CompSci 4. I also use Facebook, AIM, and Skype for keeping in touch with people, and Facebook, a blog, email, and graphic design for getting word out about events I'm involved with. And of course, with all of these activities, I make sure to keep my calendar up-to-date on my computer, syncing it with my iTouch to make sure I always know what I'm supposed to be doing.
Before I got to Duke, I hadn't really done anything with computer science. Then I got an email from Professor Rodger about the DES-CS program. I knew that since I was planning on majoring in math, it would be a good idea to learn something about computer science. I ended up enjoying my classes freshman year so much that I decided to make it my first major and switch math to second.
On a daily basis a computer scientist could do many different things; teaching or doing research at a university, writing programs for a major company, and just generally solving the problems of the world.
My best programming experience was when I finished an assignment early in CompSci 6 and started helping people with their code during the rest of class. I was able to help them fix bugs that I had found in my own code or in the code of someone who I had already helped. That was the day I decided that I wanted to be a TA, and one of my TAs thanked me after class for helping out.
My favorite programming was Boggle because it's fun to finish an assignment and have a game when you're done.
In the future I hope to be continuing to program. It's something that I've really enjoyed over the past 2 years.
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