J. Manns Blogs

Graduation Series (Part 1)

Welcome!

In a few weeks, I'll be graduating from West Visayas State University as a computer science undergraduate with a magna cum laude award.

It has been a crazy 4-year ride. With plenty of highs and lows, staying late at night debugging, lots of impostor syndrome, solo learning, and whatnot.

So much has happened in those four years that I cannot fathom how I can fit everything in a 4-part series without you thinking that it's a 4-chapter novel.

Although, with that consideration, I'll take you to have a quick view of my college life, from admissions to freshman year, up to my senior year.

I introduce you to the Graduation Series Part 1: Admissions & Freshmen!

Admissions

I took the WVSU CAT way back in 2022. I only reviewed for, like, 3 hours a few days before my exam. I was feeling lazy, yet confident since I graduated with honors and other awards at WIT SHS, and I just recently took the ISAT-U admissions exam. So I thought the knowledge was still fresh in my mind.

A few months later, I received the results of the exam. I got 60 out of 120 or something (I forgot the exact number of items). Nonetheless, I passed. My score is 60, with the passing score of 60.

Even though I barely passed, I felt relieved and extremely happy, that a lowlife and a dumb city boy like me has been given an opportunity to study at such a prestigious university.

A few weeks later, I did the CICT aptitude tests and interview, and I passed those as well. I was qualified for the CS program. Yay!

Freshmen Year

Keeping my head down

New people, new teachers, new environments. I adapted just okay, since just two years ago, I transferred to another school for my senior high education.

During the early weeks, I was extremely lowkey. Didn't make much friends outside of my section, didn't meet any seniors, or join any student organizations. I tried to stick to my classmates as close as possible, anxious of being alone in such an unfamiliar environment. I was basically just another CS student trying to survive. The type that just goes to school, do the work, and go home.

Forum Dimensions failure

I actually attempted to join Forum Dimensions as a graphic designer. I wanted to experience new things, and explore the university. So I thought that by joining a publication, I could achieve those goals by exploring and documenting events at the university.

I applied, and they did some sort of screening. We designed a poster, and wrote an article of a given subject. I never had any journalism experience, so I just wrote what I knew and as passionately as I can.

I didn't pass. But it didn't sting or anything. I was just like "Eh, guess not then," and moved on.

ROTC Experience

A major part of my freshmen year was my ROTC experience as part of our NSTP course. We had 5-hour classes every Saturday. 3 hours were usually dedicated to drills, exercises, and training. The remaining 2 hours were usually reserved for lectures.

This is the only course where I get to really practice my social skills. I had to interact with other freshmen from other colleges with diverse backgrounds (SocSci, Math, Business, etc). Because of them, I slowly gained confidence, they eased my anxiety, I can joke around freely without judgement.

One core memory was the firing event. We students are required to report at a camp in Janiuay for our firing event, that will serve as our final grade. We all met up at a terminal (I forgot which one), and we rode a jeepney up to the Janiuay mountains.

We arrived at the camp. We got oriented on what to do, and eventually we get to hold and fire an M16 rifle with 5 bullets. Then it was my turn. I came to the shooting range with no ear nor eye protection. I was instructed to go prone, where to hold the rifle, and how to fire properly.

A soldier counted to three. By three, I started firing. First shot, I almost let go of my gun. I could've shot someone next to me. But the soldier behind me told me to hold my gun properly and to hold it tight. So I did just that. Second shot, a success. Then third, fourth, and fifth.

After the shooting round, we ran to our target, took off our papers, and counted our scores, and I got 16/50. I hit the outermost layers of the target. I basically have terrible aim.

Which didn't really bother me, since NSTP grade didn't affect our overall GWA. What matters most on that day was we get to shoot an M16 rifle, feel and touch other guns (RPGs, cannons, snipers, etc) with my friends.

Learning C++

Note that the following content may be technical.

I wrote my first line of code using the C++ programming language, and ran my first program in our Intro to Programming course.

At that time, there was no AI yet. Every activity, quiz, exercise required a lot of thought, time, and effort. I took the time to really understand concepts, and code them out.

I didn't know that I was learning one of the most unforgiving programming languages at the time. I just assumed programming in general is difficult, so I had to bear with it.

First Ever C++ Project

Eventually, 3 weeks before our finals exam, our professor announced that we submit a CRUD CLI application as our final project. I chose the Employee Payroll Management System. I managed to create a very fragile CRUD app, using .txt files as the primary database with no OOP, completely by the skin of my teeth.

I was extremely proud of that project. Created my first ever project. It's basic, I know, but I don't care what you say, I'm proud of it. Even until now, I am still proud especially since I managed to finish that project singlehandedly with no AI help.

That project was supposed to be by pair, but my partner has been absent since second week of class (she hasn't returned for the next few years).

Second C++ Project

Furthermore, we had another project using C++, but only this time, it was on our second semester: Intro to Programming 2.

In that course, our professor heavily focused on OOP concepts which I found interesting and useful at the time. I can group certain entities, create custom functions, etc. It made organizing data easy.

I recall, our final project for that course was another C++ CLI system, but this time with groups of four, using C++ OOP concepts, header files to organize classes, and a documentation in a .pdf file.

For that project, we chose the Car Rental Management System. And for some reason I ended up with 3 other classmates that I barely know. I think they took me in because no other group was willing to take me in.

I eventually ended up coding 95% of the project from scratch. The other members barely contributed. I think there are two reasons why:

At the end of the day, we concluded another C++ project with no help from AI. Just pure skill, grit, and consistency.

Python is difficult

Surprisingly, Python may be the most difficult and challenging language I've initially learned.

We had a course about Computer Graphics (2nd semester), and our teacher instructed us to use Python for the entire duration of the course.

After hearing that Python is one of the easiest language, it gave me an impression of "Okay ... ???" I particularly did not know how and what to react since the only language I knew was C++.

First day in class, our teacher wanted us to code in Python. I was shocked. Tabs vs curly braces? No explicit data type declaration? For loops use range method instead of the i variable?

The language felt alien. I could've transitioned easily to other languages if it were Java, or Golang, or JavaScript, but Python? It stripped off too much control.

I wasn't alone though. Most of us in our class had no background in Python. Our teacher had to come to our table to teach basics, wasting the time on syntax instead of the lesson.

However, she continued without teaching us the Python fundamentals. She made us use matplotlib, numpy, and pandas, when we barely even know the language.

Us as a class had to self study, or else you were gonna get left behind. I remember hating this class, because I barely had time to study the language, and I had to peek at my classmates' works just to copy some code, to make my own laboratory output work.

I did just that for like 90% of my laboratory work. I felt terrible, incompetent, and stupid.

Thankfully though, 3 weeks before our finals, she announced that our final project is an image classifier. We have the freedom what to classify, as long as the dataset is manually created by us.

I had time to learn the language, and I finished the project gracefully (Solo again! It's supposed to be a three-team project. My two other members ghosted me, and unfortunately never came back in the following years).

And that teacher that I disliked for not teaching us Python properly, eventually became my mentor. She's a terrible teacher, but a great technical and research mentor.

Wrap up

And that wraps up year one! Barely passed college admissions, created two systems in C++ with no AI assitance, learned Python on my own and felt stupid, and got a 16/50 shooting range score. Stay tuned for part two!