CompSci 108 - Spring 2009

By Maxim Sirenko, Duke Class of 2011

Places Lived

Silicon Valley, CA

Chapel Hill, NC

Detroit, MI

Kiev, Ukraine

Story Of My Computer Life

I used my first computer in second grade while I was still living in Chapel Hill, North Carolina it was a relatively new ACER box that my dad brought home from work, fast for its time. When my dad brought back some RAM from the local hardware store for upgrade, he made a deal with me: I install the new RAM (under supervision of course) and after that he would let me play video games on it, namely the original Prince of Persia (which I never got past the first level) and Flying Tigers, a game I fell in love with. After that I always mainly used PC’s, I’ve dabbled in Linux but never could justify using it over the pre-installed Windows.

My dad at this time was researching theoretical physics under a retired general at NC State University, but upon going to a conference in San Francisco he received an irresistible job offer and quickly switched professions to be a Programmer/Electrical Engineer.

In my third grade we moved to Silicon Valley, and at that point it was guaranteed I would be at least interested in computer science for the rest of my life, its impossible to live there and not to, or possible but with a lot of misery.

My first formal computer science course was in high school and taught by a certain Kevin Wang, one of my favorite teachers of all time. I only had him for one year, before he left for Harvard Graduate School and eventually Microsoft. My favorite project came in that class, we had to build a java version of the VISICALC program, one of the reasons computers grew popular originally. I’ve always enjoyed being architect of my own projects, especially when they did something really cool. I never liked the programs I had to do in the beginning of introductory in college, such as boggle, because I could never figure out what part of the assignment needed editing. This may have been because of poor directions though, and it was a good experience anyways, because in the workforce I will have to work with other people’s code more often than not.

Currently I am an Economics Computer Science double major at Duke University, taking Computer Science 108, which is linked to below.

http://www.cs.duke.edu/courses/cps108/current/