AP Computer Science: Personal Statement

When I was a child, most of my time was spent on the computer. I wasn’t very interested with the physical computer, rather I was interested in everything the computer could do. It was more fun for me to tinker with the settings than to play games. As I got older in elementary school, I discovered website and game building sites. I built sites on my computer for everything from a fake business that sold toys to a page to host all the pictures from my semi-annual Barbie fashion shows. Although the technology at my fingertips was getting stronger, my interest in computers was overtaken by my love for the arts in middle school. I began to explore creative writing and movie making. My parents encouraged me to join robotics, but all the boys were doing that, so I kept at my passion for reading and writing. I became passionate about making short films. My favorite part of creating the films was writing the script. There was a beauty to bringing all the parts of together in a logical fashion to create a compelling story. Computers weren’t completely absent on my path to artistic expression though; I arbitrarily pulled them back into my life when I decided on a whim to take AP Computer Science last year. When I signed …show more content…
There were nine girls in the entire school taking the class. The boys made fun of the female teacher for only having a degree in computer science from a state university. I wanted to prove to them so badly that I could be just as good as them while facing these adverse circumstances, but I was sporting the scarlet letter ‘B’ on my report card well into the year. No matter how hard I studied, I couldn’t grasp the concepts and the specifics of the programming language. I kept trying to delve into the mathematical side of the subject, to no avail. If couldn’t prove myself in this one subject, how could I contribute to making a difference for my