Intro

My name is Rahmel Brister, and I am a former AP computer science principles student who did a lot of wrong things during my time here. I decided to make a reflection of my errors throughout the year as well as things you should do instead to be better than I was.

Work ethic

My first topic of conversation is about having a good work ethic for the class. I unfortunately did not have a good one and ended up procrastinating at many crucial points (which ironically includes this page). I also rarely spent any of my time studying for exams which also included the AP exam. For this to not happen to you, taking time out of your day to study terms or doing assignments would be the best way to spend your time rather than sitting around doing nothing all day. In addition, this is an AP class so a lot of the work is not really handed to you so figuring out how to do things on your own is very important for this class.

Know What You’re Getting Into

The original reason I joined this class was because a friend recommended it to me saying it was an easy class to do.(they lied by the way) At this point I did not have a whole lot of experience coding besides from block coding in elementary school, so trying to learn what to do without any real knowledge made it feel like I was learning a whole new language for the first time (technically I was but still). Before taking this class be sure you have some sort of background knowledge of the class before actually taking it. From someone who basically went it blind, it is hard to learn everything needed for the AP exam in the short amount of time you have to prepare for it.

Knowing people

Having trouble in this class is a mutual struggle from the experiences of me and the people I’ve met in the class. At many points in time, I would have trouble understanding a topic and would not have many people to talk to about it which made the class 10 times more challenging than before given the circumstances of the last section. Having friends can be a good assist when learning and doing assignments since some things require you to work in groups of 2 or more. Also, knowing experienced people in the field will make it easier to do work since they know what they are doing. Knowing people like my friend Sebastien assisted my grades a whole lot more than I would have by myself. (also, you can piggyback off them if you need but that’s probably not recommended). 

The AP Exam

Now for most likely the reason you joined this class, the AP exam. As said previously, I did not study as much as I needed to which led to my downfall. (Actually, at the time of writing this I don’t know what I got for my exam so hopefully I did well) As some advice, the exam is REALLY long so bringing something to eat or drink is great. The multiple choice is decently easy if you understand a bit about it, but for added incurrence please STUDY. While making the code for the written section of the exam, reading all the requirements for the code is beneficial in case a question is asked about something in your code you do not have. Finally, going through past exams helps a lot as well so you can understand what you’re getting into.

Conclusion

Overall, as much as I disliked actually doing things in the class, I think learning skills like this are helpful for future career paths if you are interested. My teacher, Dr. Edwards was a very big help to me during the year and I would like to thank her for it even though I did not do as well as expected.