Teaching Computer Science

I met a high school student last night who wants to go into computer science. I stopped teaching (part time) at Chapman when the twins were born because I just couldn't keep the high standard I require of myself. I put that time towards my kids. It has been a long time and two summers ago, during covid, I knew a freshman college student friend of the family who's college life had been disrupted and he was out of school for a year. In a conversation near a soccer field I had a God moment when he asked if he could apprentice on this side project I was working on. I knew how his mind worked from talking to him a number of times and decided to go for it because I knew he was a fast learner. We met on three zoom calls over the next week and I started at the beginning where I really finally learned to code. I remember it well so it wasn't hard to get him to that same place. After about 20 days of one hour zoom calls and a homework assignment, I learned the Rust programming language with him. It took another week or so. Rust was on my list and I wanted him to see how I approach learning a new language. After about 25 days since we had started I was able to give him an assignment on my side project. That code he wrote is still running in this system I've been building.

I love to teach and since that time I've been considering doing this again for a group of students. A team. I just don't have anyone to teach. Bring me four people who want to learn and I'll teach you. I might charge a small amount for my time, but it will be far less than I pay for my kids club soccer teams. I have helped college students enter this IEEE Game Sig contest. I could help a team of four submit a game for the 2023 or 2024 high school category. I'm serious. Ask me and if seems legit I'll do it. I've coached a number of winning teams in the first few years of this contest.