All Good Things

This is it, the end of the semester. Or I guess it’s nearly the end because I write this, students are in their final week of classes and looking ahead to what exactly remains to be done for all of their various classes. This post is intended as an explanation of those things for my students, as well as a more general reflection on this course as a whole.

This is the first time I’ve taught this class, and it’s been a blast.

All semester, when people have asked how’s my semester going, this is the class I almost always talk about first. I my other classes too, but this is my special new baby. That’s not to say it hasn’t been challenging in many ways, but for the most part, the challenges have been surmountable and really worth figuring out. That’s speaking from my point of view, of course. I know my students will have perceived those challenges in different ways.

So students: here’s a non-exhaustive list of what I hope you’ve learned this semester, in no particular order:

• I hope you’ve learned that different programming languages are good at different things, and sometimes it takes some research to figure out which is the best language for a particular task.
• I hope you’ve learned some Python, or at least you’ve learned not to fear it.
• I hope you’ve learned how easy it is to make a Twitter bot, and that it’s possible for randomly-generated text to make someone lol.
• I hope you’ve learned that there are lots of people doing lots of interesting, weird, and beautiful things with computers.
• I hope you’ve learned that images are just another kind of data that can be manipulated in code.
• I hope you’ve learned that “creativity” isn’t just a license to do whatever you want, but that it takes time, patience, and lots of trial and error to skillfully execute a vision that other people will feel compelled to notice or respond to.
• Finally and most importantly, I hope you’ve learned that coding creatively is something you can do.

So I guess that list is actually in some kind of order because that last point is probably the most important. Thinking back on the first conversations we had in this class, many of you expressed anxiety about the tasks that then lay before us. Many of you are new to programming, so you were concerned about keeping up with and understanding the assignments. I’ll admit, it’s been difficult for me – and it always is – to adjust my instructions and expectations to appropriately challenge a wide range of skills and experience within a particular class, but at least from where what I see, you all should be proud of the progress you’ve made and the work you’ve accomplished.

Ultimately, I hope you leave this class believing that you can do these things, not because these things have turned out to be easier than you expected, but because these things become easier through the practice that you’ve put in by completing these projects.

Now, your final portfolio is a chance to revisit those projects and, in your own terms, make them better.