Science-Poetry

rm -worries

By: Tejas Chandrasekar (School of Computer Science) Competition Year: 2018 Votes (1) | Comments (1)

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It won't run, neither will it compile too
I've tried to override the code inside this while loop.
I thought "Here's what I'll do:
Change the style through the file's roots ,
Maybe a line or two."
still nothing.

As usual, we gaze at the TA's taking 3 days just to mark coursework
I see mates who've got 3 straight perfect marks, of course work's
A high priority, you gotta be properly prepared
but not with me - cos I'm honestly scared.

What if I don't get the perfect score?
cos I've heard before the words from more first years
"Perfect's normal - anything less is absurd you're awful"
My inexperience makes me clearly inferior-
I feel remorseful - that I haven't done this kind of work before
Hopefully it was worth it all doing work til 4 in the morning

"Could you run a submit diff please?", the TA says as I nervously type it in
I then show my code - oh god, where do I begin?
I've seen mates in my vicinity typing in the 3 last lines I just did
"mm, so everything's looking fine but this"
I said "Ooh, erm what's the problem?"
"Well you could've just used a for loop, rather than whiles and ifs"
"So when it compiles all this, there won't be anything the compiler missed"
"So for that, out of 10 I'm only giving you five or six"
I want to agrue, but I resist
all my hours of slaving away, reducded to a pile of... trash

And this is how it starts.

Just like my program, I crash.
It's all spilling out, my anxiety and stress levels clash.
My personal tutor then turns and asks: "What's wrong?"

"Shall we step outside for a minute?"

"Everyone here is evidently better than me!"
"Their code works effortlessly!"
"A perfect mark on my course work I never have seen,"
"In fact, exams, coursework, whatever it be"
"I'm always making more mistakes inevitably"

He said: "Well that's good!"
I said "What?"

"How else do you learn and grow?"
"When the TA's come and it's your turn to show
your work, they're not searching for the perfect code."
"They want to see your progress.
Remember, it's no test to see who codes less and whose lines flow best.

If you focus on the process, rather than the show test, the marks come to you - no stress.

That day there was something I forgot;
Distracted by the anxiety inside of me, which I tried to stop,
I couldn't remember something I applied a lot
Before my first semester at uni - but I can recall it now.

It was my passion for learning.