Lessons from Computing

As a CS major, I have been “computing” for a long time, so in that field the new experiences I had were mostly learning more about Arduino and Processing. But in other senses, computing this semester has helped me in other ways. Some days, when projects are due, I would pull an all-nighter to work things out and get tasks done, and for my midterm project that was the similar case. Actually, for Intro to IM in general, I used the computer for prolonged periods of time since most of the work done was on Arduino or Processing. This experience of using the computer for IM and multiple other classes simultaneously for a long time taught me a valuable lesson.

That lesson is to take a break. It might sound simple, but there are a lot of instances I see where people are frustrated with coding and their minds are filled with stressed. I feel that way too sometimes. But this semester especially, when I felt that I could not work after a few hours, I would take nature walks and small breaks where I would eat some snacks and talk to other people. This really aided in re-organizing my thoughts and when I came back I would perform better and sometimes realize that it was only a small mistake I made that was preventing my work from functioning properly. Now that I practice this method from time to time, I believe it has and will help me numerous times in throughout my lifetime.