CodeHS Student Journey: From Coding in High School to Cornell University

CodeHS Student Journey: From Coding in High School to Cornell University

By William Lee, Computer Science Major at Cornell University

Hello! My name is William Lee, and I am a rising sophomore currently studying Computer Science at Cornell University.

I first started coding in 9th grade when I took an introduction to computer science course in my high school. I was more of a humanities / liberal arts person until I took that class, but being able to create functioning programs out of essentially nothing really grabbed my interest and eventually led me to pursue CS as my major.

I have taken the JavaScript, HTML/CSS, CSP, CSA courses with CodeHS. My favorite part about learning how to code with CodeHS was that it was user-friendly and suitable for beginners because it teaches core concepts in a clear manner.

My first year of college, I took Object Oriented Programming & Data Structures, an app development course called Introduction to iOS Development, and Discrete Structures. My favorite programming language so far has to be Java just because I feel the most comfortable with it, having started from AP CSA in high school up to my first year at Cornell.

I definitely am interested in pursuing a career in computer science, and my goal is to first affiliate with the major and then explore internships and research opportunities before I graduate to get a better sense of what I want to do.

For those interested in pursuing computer science, you are probably going to be doing a lot of math as well, so make sure you are fine with that. For instance, a computer science class I took last semester called Discrete Structures, or Discrete Mathematics, had zero coding and was essentially a math class. Other than that, just take things slow and be prepared to spend hours and hours on one problem.