Back to School (again!): October reflections 

This month we asked Lori to share what she found most challenging about her course so far, how she was handling preparation for her first midterm exam and how this experience is re-shaping the ways she thinks about learning.   

Anxious Tears and Jolts of Joy

If you read my September Reflections, you’ll know that I started this computer science course with equal parts curiosity, humility, and mild terror. I even joked about needing help with how to find and open the “terminal” on my Mac! Since then, I’ve been keeping up with the lectures and tutorial activities and trying to see the logic that other people seem to just get. 

However, I have to be honest with you, I’ve shed more tears over this course than any I’ve taken in years. Not out of despair, but out of the exhaustion that comes from trying so hard and realizing I’m still coming up short.  

In the weeks leading up to the midterm, I spent hours every night taking notes, re-watching lecture videos, re-doing the tutorial activities, and practicing in Visual Studio Code. Then, I attempted the multiple-choice practice test. Despite my best efforts I failed on my first attempt. Failed badly. I scored less than 30% and landed in disbelief: somewhere between horror and laughter. How could that be—after I had dedicated so much time and effort? I was left feeling anxious and insecure, and questioning what and why I was doing this. 

The dissonance between mission and reality

The course aims to introduce students to the world of computational thinking, which is thinking that’s inspired, supported, or enabled by computing. The professor believes every university student should learn computational thinking, and I would agree that these skills are important in our increasingly digital world.   

The lectures and assignments are theoretically rich, the topics are interesting and thought-provoking, and the course provides great conceptual overviews focusing on overarching questions each week. But the midterm practice questions went much deeper into tricky logic puzzles, syntax details, historical facts, and complex mathematical equations. As a true beginner in computer science, this dissonance was a jarring experience.  

Still, I persist

Maybe it’s stubbornness. Maybe it’s that strange alchemy of learning that turns humility (or humiliation?) into motivation. After that disastrous first attempt on the practice test, I dove into learning even more actively, drawing out truth tables, tracing recursive functions, testing out various codes, and making many mistakes. 

Every so often, the logic would finally click, like when the recursion unraveled in my brain or when the function returned exactly what I hoped for, and it was euphoric. Those small wins were like jolts of electricity that reminded me why I love learning in the first place.   

So how did the midterm go?

After many hours of late night and weekend preparation, I arrived at the exam room. The lobby buzzed with anxious energy as I sat waiting with my son—his confidence a stark contrast to my nervousness. I have so much respect and admiration for how quickly he learns and how much his own ways of thinking align with the foundations of computational thinking.  

The doors opened, the TAs allowed us to enter, and we found seats with the exam question packages and scantron sheets laid out. They announced we could start and the time flew by. I worked through the problems just as I had during my practice and I was even impressed with my ability to work through some of them with confidence. Two hours later, I left the exam room with some relief and a renewed belief in myself that I am indeed learning (slowly) how to think like a computer scientist. A small win worth celebrating at the Phoenix with my son after the test!  

Remembering what it feels like to be a beginner

As an educational developer, I have spent much of my professional career supporting instructors in designing academic programs, courses, assessments, and learning experiences. But this course has flipped the mirror on me. I’ve been living the very experience I ask faculty to consider: the vulnerability of not yet knowing, the challenge that exists in the dissonance of expectations and reality, the emotional roller coaster of learning at the edge of your competence. 

It has been uncomfortable. Sometimes brutally so. But it has also been profoundly illuminating. I’m re-learning empathy for every student who has ever sat in a classroom feeling lost, terrified to be called on, or convinced they’re not smart enough. In this course, despite my past success in completing six other academic degrees and diplomas, I am experiencing all these same anxieties that my first-year peers are experiencing. 

While I see opportunity for this course to spark more curiosity and less anxiety, there’s one thing I can’t deny: I am learning about computer science, about recursion, about logic, and, about myself. 

The joy in the struggle

About a week after the midterm exam, the results were posted, and I did in fact pass! Despite my anxieties and insecurity, I managed to push through the setbacks and prevail.  

It reminded me that there’s a moment in every steep learning curve when the frustration starts to feel familiar, even friendly. When you realize the struggle is the point and that it is the proof that you’re stretching into new territory. That’s where I am now. Somewhere between tears and triumph. Between anxious doubt and fleeting joy. 

Computational thinking may be about algorithms and logic, but for me, this journey is also about persistence, humility, and remembering what it means to be a beginner again. 

And that, as it turns out, has been the most valuable lesson of all.