CS371p Fall 2021: Truman Byrd

Where did you grow up?

I’m originally from a small town called Angleton, which is about an hour from Houston. I went to high school in Austin, and have lived here ever since.

What high school did you attend?

I attended Akins High School in south Austin!

What was your favorite extracurricular activity in high school?

In high school I was pretty involved in the film classes/club at my school. My favorite experience by far was whenever I was able to create and direct a short film to be shown at the Austin Film Festival! It was a great experience, and I definitely recommend checking out AFF if you’re a fan of movies! They’re very involved in the local film scene, and there’s always something interesting at their festival.

Why did you come to UT/why are you majoring in CS?

I’ve been in Texas my entire life and UT has always seemed like the obvious choice for where to attend college. Now that I’m in my last year at UT, I can definitely say that it was the right choice! I chose to major in CS at UT because I had taken a CS course in high school and had always been interested in computers from a fairly young age.

How much C/C++ do you already know?

I would say I’m really confident in my C, but I have never really touched C++ since it hasn’t come up in any internships/courses in the past. I’m definitely excited to learn what the differences between the two languages are in this course.

How did you like the first lectures/how did you feel about the cold calling?

I think they went really well! I enjoyed the lecture on docker especially; when we did a similar lecture last semester, I was a bit lost because I didn’t have a lot of context about what made docker so great. However, we used it a lot at my internship over the summer, and I was really glad to get the refresher in the second lecture. The cold calling is great since it keeps everyone focused on the class, and allows everyone to play a role in the course.

What made you happy this week?

I was really happy to be back on campus after nearly 3 semesters of online classes. It was awesome seeing speedway full of students again! I’ve been enjoying the hybrid model so far, and I’m hoping it will be sustainable through the end of the semester. I was also able to get tickets to see an artist who I’ve wanted to see for a long time, which I’m really excited about!

What’s your pick-of-the-week/tip-of-the-week?

This isn’t too related to this course in particular, but if you’re interested in learning CSS, there are some really cool games/tutorials out there which really helped me learn some of the more difficult topics! As an example, I’m a big fan of https://flexboxfroggy.com/, which is how I learned how to use CSS flexboxes.