first day of class

i think i may be coming down with the sniffles. hopefully after a night of rest i can get better. today was the first day of the program. i was feeling well actually...don't know why i'm so tired and sick now.

micheal started off the lecture with introductions, and what the course was about, and the motivation behind it. i took some notes, learned a few things myself. then we headed over to the lab, where i gave brief overview of Eclipse, and Zach followed up with some examples and finished up the lab.

we went off to lunch, and had my first african barbeque fish. their cafeteria food wasn't that bad. we headed back towards the lab, where we started the skills assesment lab, where we had the students do some java programming so we could see where everyone was and see where to start our java curriculum tomorrow. i did some reading myself, and tried out the lab. i walked around to see how everyone was doing, and it was pretty amazing see other people do their coding, trying to figure out their way of thinking through problems. after two hours, we went around doing mini-interviews with everyone, to see if they understood their code, and asked them how it worked. i got to explain some concepts to a few of the students, and it really made me understand more of java, as i was explaining to them how some of the code worked. overall, i would say a little more than half of the class is okay, a few great ones, and a few who don't have strong programming skills. during our group meeting we were discussing how after tomorrow's lab, we would have to cut those who don't have a good programmming background from the program. i was pretty upset to hear that, because i feel even though some students may not know programming, they should be given a chance to learn and do their best. hopefully they'll do well on the labs and lecture tomorrow. i could feel myself holding my tears back. imagine if my i were in their shoes, and not be able to participate in this program because of my skill level, which isn't my fault...i don't have the money to go to a great school when i was young to learn all his programming stuff. i can somehow relate to many of these individuals.

we came back to the apartment, got some pizza for dinner, and i worked on some problems for tomorrow's lab. i made a palindrome and factorial problem for the students to work on for tomorrow. it was pretty amazing browsing through the java api. can't wait to explore more of it. anyhow, gotta go to bed. don't want to be sick in class tomorrow. looking forward to more teaching and learning.