Computer Science: The Foundation You Didn't Know You Needed

Description

Welcome to my course on Computer Science! Let's consider two scenarios:

Scenario 1:

You started a new job in computer science (you thought you knew enough to handle it), and in that job you are required to know how to use some aspects of your computer you never knew even existed (e.g., a terminal, a webhook, a particular code editor, etc). You have to learn quickly because the project you were put on needs to be done in 1 month. *PANIC*.

Scenario 2:

You have never programmed anything before, but you decide to start a master's degree in computer science (but your bachelor's degree was in an entirely different field), and the first day the teacher asks you to write a program in C and it's due in 2 weeks. *PANIC*.

Hi, I'm James Michael Ballow, and both of these scenarios happened to me, at nearly the same time. I was nervous, and I felt anxiety and panic. The biggest problem I had was that every time I looked for a book, article, or video that would explain to me the very basics of computing, programming, or languages, nearly all of them began speaking 15 steps ahead of where I needed to start. I was always infuriated that no amount of searching could give me what I wanted. In order to get over this, I had to ask a million questions (sometimes admittedly stupid and embarrassing questions) to colleagues and professors in order to really understand things on a fundamental level.

As I went along in my academic and professional careers, I noticed something: the other students seemed to be struggling with the same thing I was, but because they did not admit their lack of fundamental understanding, their grades were often quite low. That's when it hit me: every single person is struggling with understanding this computer science stuff. This phenomena is best described by me as a "barrier" between the human and computer. This course breaks that barrier.

In this course I tell you about myself and my journey from knowing absolutely nothing about computer science, to getting a 4.0 in my Master's in Computer Science and becoming a practicing software engineer and machine learnist. I will tell you quite plainly how to think about certain concepts so that the concepts that you will learn beyond this course will be much simpler. After taking this course, you will no longer feel like there are a million things you need to learn on your own before you can start your programming, or managing/working on a programming team.

Let's do it!

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