My favorite professor, Dr. Bezrukov, used to have a very apt approach embed to those all-important, core elements in computer science to which there was no simple explanation: “I’m going to tell you how important it is that you should know this. Not only do you need to remember…it needs to be there in the center of your mind. If someone were to come into your room in the middle of the night, grab you, and shake you awake…you need to be shouting as you wake up.” This was an extraordinary way to help us realize how much he wanted us to learn this topic.

The first thing that my professor explained to me in just such a way was the structure of a Java class. I had never had any programming experience in my life, and Java was as foreign to me as Greek. But it didn’t take long for me to memorize “public static void main(String[] args){}”. I had no clue what any of it meant, but I shouted it when I was startled from my sleep. I also got used to typing it every time I started my homework in vim.

My most enjoyable memories in the computer science field were those “a-ha” moments when the simplest of concepts suddenly made complete sense, like Dr. Bezrukov’s “public static void main()”. I admit that I used to have one of these every week. I remember standing in the shower before an early morning of class and suddenly realizing how hot and cold water piping really worked and why it took time for water to warm up. This may seem silly to you, but it’s not something I had thought about before. I encourage everyone to have these moments as often as possible at every phase in life.