CS371p Fall 2021: Xuefei Zhao
Where did you grow up? What high school did you attend? What was your favorite extracurricular activity in high school?
I grew up in Beijing and went to Beijing National Day School. During high school, I was involved in the Space Settlement Design Competition and enjoyed it a lot.
Why did you come to UT? Why are you majoring in CS?
I came to UT as a Petroleum Engineering major because UT had the best petroleum engineering program in the states. However, after a year I realized petroleum engineering is not promising. People who work in the industry are reluctant to use new technologies because to them it does not worth giving up the already high profit to try something no one has experience on. In addition, the petroleum market is one of the major incomes of the states from other countries, so international students are unlikely to find a job in the states after graduation. Therefore, I decided to transfer to CS, and I’m glad to make this choice so far.
Why are you in this class? What are your expectations of this class?
I had professor Downing’s SWE class last semester and had a great experience. So I am here hoping to learn more from professor Downing. I expect to learn C++ and improve my programming skills in this class.
How much C/C++ do you already know?
I used C for CS429 and CS439 and had a little experience with C++ during my internship the past summer. I never systematically learned C++ or wrote a complete program in C++ myself, so I am not very confident using it at this point.
How did you like the first lectures?
Since I had SWE last semester, I am quite familiar with the first lectures. The only thing that surprised me is grading. Although I’m a bit concerned about how this will work, I guess the only way to find out is to actually try this.
How did you feel about the cold calling?
I like the cold calling in professor Downing’s class. I don’t feel awkward at all if I don’t know the answer or answer something wrong. And it makes me think actively in class.
What made you happy this week?
My friends are back on campus!
What’s your pick-of-the-week or tip-of-the-week?
W3Schools is a website that I use a lot to learn new languages. It provides an integrated editor and terminal to help you try out while learning the code examples, and it has some exercises to practice with.
