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My experience at Shodor has been educational, auspicious, and pleasurable. I have learned how to use many additional computer programs to accelerate my productivity. To list some skills that I have gained and reinforced through my Shodor apprenticeship, I have skill in website creation, graphic creation, computer model creation, and mathematics. I've also learned about work ethics and how to work well with others.
I have learned much, and I plan to learn more. I wish to expand my knowledge in the areas of programming and website creation, specifically Bash, PHP, and XML. In school, I plan on taking Advanced Computer Programming and two math classes (Algebra II and Pre-Calculus). At Shodor, I wish to work on projects on those three subjects, and expand to others that I haven't yet been introduced to.
I have no absolute career goals in mind yet. I know that I enjoy and profess in general programming, but I don't feel that one specific task has seized me. I will continue to expand my programming knowledge with an open mind.
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During this class, we learned about using an old Mac OS 9 program called Vensim to create non-graphical models. By non-graphical models, I mean models that don't have pretty interfaces that show you things happening, such as Agentsheets. Although, the interface you use to do all of the math is actually fairly visual. It involves creating lots of variables in boxes, and using arrows to connect them. Back in the Mac OS 9 days, this was probably great. It can create charts and tables, so it pretty much falls into the same category as Microsoft Excel, just with a lot less support!
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Today the class learned about using equations and sliders in Microsoft Excel to create dynamically updating graphs (or as Excel refers to them, charts) as well as tables. I like using Microsoft Excel, but not actually because of how it functions or the interface, but just because, being part of Microsoft Office, is the standard format. But, I do like Microsoft Excel for complex number crunching. I've used it before for game-related number crunching, and it works quite well. I imagine that it would excel (hah... hah...) in any area involving using lots of variables in one large equation.
