Each college has its own personality and its own traditions. Carnegie Mellon’s main event in the spring is the carnival, which I cannot wait to experience! However, in true “nerdy” Carnegie Mellon style, another essential item to our time here is a course that is often known by its course number “112.” Officially known as Fundamentals of Programming and Computer Science, “112” is a course that almost every Carnegie Mellon student has strong feelings about and which every non-Carnegie Mellon student cannot comprehend. As an incoming freshman this past fall, I was warned by my brother, an alum, to try to learn how to code a little before coming to school. The few days that I spent on Code Academy did not prepare me for the whirlwind that I soon faced.
I don’t think that I can sit here and say that it was the best experience of my life because I definitely had some horrific moments. However, I can’t bash the course because I came out of the course knowing so much more than I ever thought that I would. This is why I think that asking a CMU student about “112” leads to such amusing reactions. Who knew that two digits could torment us so much? Who would have thought that Monday would be one of your favorite days because at 9:59 last night, you felt the weight of the world on your shoulders as you refreshed autolab over and over again? Not only did the course consume my weekend, but it also consumed me. Even after the semester, I found myself writing "≠" as "!=" in my math notes. I had never thought that a simple game like Tetris would bring up as many emotions as it now does. Of course, nothing beats seeing the cult of the blue sweatshirts around campus!
The lectures themselves taught me much more than coding, the object-orientated programming and recursion examples were interspersed with life lessons and enthusiasm that, once you make it past the semester, you are officially employable! To get there, however, you spend many hours of frustration trying to decode your code when you realize that, all along, you had written “==” instead of “=.” There are times when you get so frustrated while trying to do a homework problem that you feel like you have no idea how to do anything, especially when you get an email reminder to live a healthy lifestyle, but the negative sentiments all dissolve into euphoria as you finish writing your code (and, more excitingly, the function is under the twenty line limit!).
The term project is another beast in itself! You start off with a blank sublime screen and, after a few very short weeks, you feel so good about yourself, knowing that the hours of slaving away throughout the past fifteen weeks have paid off. Going to Term Project Presentations make you soon realize that your project may not have been as cool as you thought, but that is totally OK because it makes you realize why you’re so lucky to be at Carnegie Mellon. After all, in your first programming class, you are with people who were able to code videos like “The Hermit.”
Although it may not be advertised on brochures for prospective students, “112” completes the Carnegie Mellon experience.
