MEMORIES AND LEARNINGS FROM TRIMESTER 1
- One thing I learned from this trimester was the value of having proper discussions during the ideation period of projects. In the past, especially during CSP, the groups that I was in solely emphasized making commits, having tangibles to show, and having some sort of actual progress that we generally had mishaps in the initial process stage which led to even greater mishaps when creating the project. During this trimester, however, our group had actual discussions and we all voiced our opinions on project ideas, project features, reviews, and other such things, that when it came time to actually create a product, the process has been a lot smoother and more efficient with as little conflict as possible.
- Trimester 1 of CSA has been all about Java. In AP CSP, the emphasis was on getting an introduction to Computer Science and basic coding frameworks via HTML, MD, JavaScript, and Python. Now, in AP CSA, I have started my journey into Java programming. I have learned a lot about the similarities and differences between Java and other languages, and have seen a lot of growth in my programming diversity now that Java is slowly being added to my toolkit.
- CORE MEMORY: The FRQ Mini-Lab was a pretty cool part of Trimester 1. I got to dive in first hand to how Arrays and ArrayLists operated and we were able to teach it to another group of people, gather diverse perspectives on the same types of FRQs/Topics, and give each other feedback. This was very useful, as I got to learn more about all the types of things I would see on the AP Exam.
POSITIVE ACCOMPLISHMENTS
- I think that I was a very useful member on the team. I actually did work for each live review and I contributed to team ideation and process. I helped create issues and review tickets, keep my team members and myself organized, and learn about different Java concepts from more experienced members like Rohin.
- I think that the new things I learned from this trimester were very valuable and I am proud of myself for that. First of all, I learned more about JavaScript OOP during the first small project that we did. Along with Rohin, I created a linear regression model allowing for a user to predict stock prices based on a given input in a certain amount of time. I learned about CanvasJS, OOP, and greater code abstraction. Furthermore, I got a good introduction to Java. Spring is pretty complicated to learn, but I feel that I got a good background as to how the framework is organized and how to incorporate it into different types of projects. I didn’t think that I would be able to understand any of it to be quite honest, but I was able to after a good amount of perseverance and teamwork.
THINGS I INTEND TO LEARN MORE ABOUT IN FUTURE TRIMESTERS
- In future trimesters, I hope to learn more about Spring and Java backend frameworks. Right now, I have a basic understanding of the things that I had to do as part of my feature on Spring - this included person authentication, JWT, and API Controllers. In the future trimesters, I hope to understand the framework as a whole.
- In future trimesters, I also hope to better understand object-oriented programming in Java. Now that I have a foundational understanding of the concepts and all the units that are a part of the AP CSA curriculum, I want to dig deeper and figure out how to make my code more efficient.
OPPORTUNITIES FOR GROWTH
- One thing that I hope to improve on from this trimester is the amount of time I want to invest into going ABOVE AND BEYOND and learning about novel programming concepts that I can implement into projects. This trimester, though I have tried to go beyond the expectations unlike I did in CSP, there is certainly potential for me to do more research. Next trimester, since most of my college apps and such will be done, I will be able to grind out extra research and make projects/reviews even higher quality.
TEAM REVIEWS EC
