How Coding Made Me a Better Student: A Personal Reflection

Once I was eleven years old. I was in the sixth grade. I have been homeschooled since kindergarten and usually had to teach myself many things. During the school year, the days seemed to pass by very quickly. It was not until December that I began feeling strange. I asked myself about it but even I had no idea of what was happening. I slept on that strange feeling and it was not comfortable.

The following day I went through my day and finally realized that I did not feel very compelled to do any homework.

I did not want to do anything, at all. The next year, however, I learned to code. Coding not only gave me something to do but taught me to be a better student who can teach themself anything.

It was in the spring that I found the book “The Complete Idiots Guide to Building a Website.” When I laid my eyes upon it, I felt it was calling me.

It was fate. I opened the book and began to scan the contents. The words were small and simple, there were steps to follow, it was perfect. So, I sat down at my computer and tried to begin building a website of my own.

After almost an hour, I felt like a fish. I was forgetting everything I had read almost instantly. Maybe I just did not understand it. If so, I did not let myself believe that for it all looked so simple. The thought of not being able to understand the writer’s syntax displeased me.

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I was going mad. Minutes later I found myself on the bench, the book had won. If an idiot could understand the book, I was dumber than an idiot.

A few months later I finally realized that I was eleven years old. Of course I did not understand the book. I was being too hard on myself. Surely, the author did not expect children to utilize it as much, if not more, than adults. Wanting to try again, I searched for “The Complete Idiots Guide to Building a Website.” As I looked, I told myself that if I should find the book, I will try harder or simply attempt to comprehend it later in my life.

Then, one afternoon, I uncovered it underneath a tower of other books. I ran to my computer and quickly opened the book to the first page. I scanned the writing and explained all I could to myself hoping I would fare better than my last time in the ring with this paperback adversary of mine. I took a few hits but continued to persevere. I was determined to win this battle – to get good at something I wanted to love. Finally, after hours of taking blows, I had prevailed. The book had lost to eleven- year-old boy.

After overcoming such a struggle, I was able to understand most of the book. I sat back and admired my final result. In my eyes, it was perfect. One week later, after all this time, I was still struggling to make an effort in my schoolwork. My math textbook was now beginning to sound simply incomprehensible. Where have I noticed this before? Holding my head, I felt like to Ernest P. Worrel. I knew I needed to try harder to understand the math.

Suddenly, I heard a voice in my head. It was my inner consciousness telling me “You can do this. You defeated that website guidebook so I have no doubt you can do this.” Instantly, I grabbed my pencil and my math textbook. In that same day I received a great score in math. With that math grade, I knew that I could teach myself to learn and achieve good grades as a result.

Writing code, though it consumed a lot of time, required work, determination, and perseverance which helped me greatly in school. Firstly, overcoming the challenge of learning code has taught me that I can teach myself anything and learn it if I try hard enough. The second thing programming has shown me is that all things require even the slightest amount of perseverance which is necessary for completing homework assignments.

Finally, coding has shown me that you must be determined to complete a task, or you will not do as well. In short, coding has made me realize that you must work hard, be determined, and persevere. After truly realizing those things, I instantly became a better student. I began doing my homework more efficiently because I knew the work would pay off by helping me get into college work a job I would love.