Small Fish In A Big Pond Jumps Into The Ocean

By Katherine Waissbluth

My high school AP Computer Science class was a mere thirty students. Plenty small for one-on-one attention from the teacher, and it was easy enough to have all your questions answered. The intimidating part was, of course, being one of three girls in a class of thirty. I got through the class only because of the ability to see my teacher before and after class along with having all my questions during lecture answered right on the spot. Knowing this, you can imagine the knot that formed in my stomach when I found out my first computer science class at Stanford has over five hundred students and one professor. This was just not going to do. Who was going to answer my all my questions? How am I ever going to get personalized help? Should I just drop the class? Don’t get me wrong; I love computer science, but that doesn’t mean it comes easily and without questions to me. My first day of CS106A I showed up forty-five, yes forty-five, minutes early to class. Five hundred students in a lecture hall with only two hundred seats? I was getting one of the those seats. Mehran, Stanford’s magical wizard of computer science, began right on time. Within ten minutes, all my anxieties about class size had been relieved. TAs? Section? YEAH Hours? LaIR? CLaIR? The resources just don’t stop. The computer science department at Stanford recognizes that five hundred to a class with one professor means that not everyone will get the help they need, and thus they go out of their way to provide endless resources for computer science help to the students here. The transition from a class of thirty to a class of over five hundred was one I was not ready to make, but surprisingly has gone smoothly.