Cracking the Code: Junior Studies Computer Science at East & JCCC

Surrounded by dozens of 20-something-year-olds working towards a major  in computer science, junior Edward Monroy is doing the same thing.Every Thursday, Monroy goes to Johnson County Community College for Computer Science 134 where he learns the coding language for computer programs and how to apply them.

But at East, those college students are replaced by five fellow high school students in his second hour AP Computer Science class.

The AP Computer Science class is designed for students who are interested in computers and want to better understand how to code. They achieve this by using the class to  become more comfortable with using programs such as Java and Python to create software.

“The class is for students that are interested in Computer Programming as a career,”said Jamie Kelly, the AP Computer Science teacher. “AP Computer Science is challenging and can be very difficult, but it is also very rewarding for the students when [they]  use [their] problem solving skills to figure out the right way to write the code.”

Even with over three years of knowledge of coding and syntax, Monroy still feels challenged by the class. He finds himself learning how to code more efficiently or the fastest way to solve a problem during each project done in the class.

“Using the knowledge that I have gained from math classes and other experiences, I can figure out a way to get the same input easier and faster than what the book says to do,” says Monroy. “I look online to find ways to do this outside of school. Then I use what I’ve learned about the topic in my free time to apply it to the different challenges.”

The class consists of students reading about a certain program and then trying to use their knowledge of coding and syntax— or the language used in the program—to complete an assignment.

“It’s really great. We are all work together as a team and try to figure out an easy way to get the an output that matches the instructions,” Monroy said. “It’s really nice having a small group of people because we all talk to each other and we all know each other.”

Monroy uses the college course he takes at night along with his AP Computer Science class as a step towards reaching his goal of turning his passion for computers into something more. Monroy hopes to become a computer science engineer, combining both his passion for coding and solving software issues.

Monroy’s passion for programming computers started long before his computer science class this year. Since Monroy was young, he was staying up past his bedtime so he could squeeze in one more game of Super Mario Bros, and as he grew older, he started to become curious about how these games functioned. Monroy was struck by the conviction that one day, he would be the one to create the Mario worlds.

He began coding freshman year, learning the fundamentals of web development. As Monroy’s schedule became filled with biology labs and English essays, he began to have less time for coding. However, he regained interest in computer programming two years ago when his friends asked him to accompany them at Hackathon — a competition at Kansas State University where high school and college students from around the state form groups and show off a program they create. Monroy and his team had two days to make a program and present it to sponsors from Garmin and other tech companies.

In the Hackathon, Monroy competed with his group consisting of himself, senior Jack Moren and East alumni Jack Carter and Christian Buller. Their program was designed to blur out faces that it didn’t already have stored in its system in order to protect people’s identity. If someone wanted the program not to blur a face out, they would send multiple pictures of themself at different angles in order for the program to learn the characteristics of their face.

“We got this idea from Youtube,”Monroy said. “People get their videos taken down because they have faces of people in their videos without their consent. Our program aims to solve that problem.”

This program won Monroy and his team first place in the artificial intelligence software category.

Senior Michael Perry,another student in the class, shares Monroy’s interest in coding technology. The two often work together along with the other students in the class to solve the projects.

“[Monroy] likes to twist the projects given to us to see what else he can do with it,”Perry said. “He’s always asking me questions on what I’m working on or wanting me to look over his code to see if there’s a faster way to do it.”

When Monroy isn’t attending class at night or competing with his software, he’s coding websites on his own time. He has recently earned money by designing a website on the app FreeLancer. FreeLancer is an anonymous app where Monroy can make websites to be used as portfolios and then send to a client.

By the time Monroy is the age of the other students in his Computer Science 134 class, he hopes to already be making a career out of his passion for computers.