The first time I saw an iPhone was around thirteen or fourteen years ago. When I first saw it, I was amazed by this little box. iPhone includes all of the functions that a standard phone has, and that phone can be controlled by only one button. From then on, it felt like someone pushed the fast forward button to the future of technological invention. All of a sudden, lots of high technology companies started developing their own products and took over the market quickly. I was asking myself, “What happened? Am I crazy, or is it just fate?”
Nowadays, I am already used to the new technology and how fast a new creation can get rid of the old one. But a new word is introduced to a lot of people— “Coding.” Coding is the secret behind all of these new technical inventions. Without coding, none of the computers or phones can work adequately with high functions. After everyone understood the necessity of coding knowledge and how coding can help the world, most parents ask their kids to participate in different types of coding classes. Unfortunately, and fortunately, I am one of those kids. To be honest, I never took coding very seriously because, to me, it seemed as if coding is only needed when experts try to solve very tough questions in computer science and engineering. Like many of my other thoughts, this first impression was completely revolutionized during one class.
This summer, I participated in Columbia University’s summer program. Throughout the first two classes, I completely changed my mind on biology. I began to enjoy the course a bit more. However, when I first saw the schedule, I was baffled. After taking two biology classes and taking JavaScript coding class as the third and last class for this summer, I wasn’t sure how to apply the knowledge across the fields.
Throughout the coding class, the professor assigned little tasks for us to complete first on the computer. I did not expect these simple coding tasks to be creating a circle and making it move horizontally. Although these assignments confused me as I understood how to do it, I still cannot find the connection between this course and the previous biology class. As time passed, my teacher told me to combine all of those little assignments into a very complicated one. This is the first time I felt pressure during the course because it was very hard to remember all of those detailed elements. Besides that, I still had to make sure my final assignment was reasonable, and the logic made sense. If I have all the details but the main idea is incorrect or off-topic, my code won’t work out. In the end, I made a code that can make a ball bounce back and force itself inside a box, and every time the ball touches the wall, it will change to a random color. I am very proud of myself because it was my first time making Javascript this complicated and incorporating so many elements. From this project, I understood the real meaning of coding: coding is not just a tool for experts. It is a language like English. In English, some words are very simple, but some words are very complicated. The same applies to coding; if you use a small number of lines to write a set of codes, it will just be a simple program and vice versa.
On the last day of class, I finally got a chance to ask my teacher what the connection between this coding course and the previous biology courses was. He told me that biology and other subjects have some really strong connections with coding. For example, in my previous biology classes, I did a lot of simulation about evolution. All of those simulations include coding, and if I have the fundamental knowledge, I can get to the final result faster and more efficiently. Now, I have finished all the summer classes. During these classes, I learned from some knowledge-based courses like coding, but I also understand biology is much more than remembering different definitions. I want to thank all of my teachers, and I will be back next summer.
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