CS373 Spring 2021: Jack Raney
Hi there, I’m Jack Raney. I grew up in Southeast Texas in the area surrounding a city called Beaumont. In 2017 I graduated from Hardin Jefferson High School which is located in the oddly named town of Sour Lake, Texas. Rumor has it that the town is named after a sinkhole that filled with water making a decently sized pond, but between you and me, I’ve seen no such sinkhole.
In High School I played football and took part in a variety of academic competitions, but in hindsight the most important extracurricular was actually Theatre. Being the shy, introvert that I am, theatre was an odd pick for me. For most of my time in High School I would have never imagined that I would be willing to get on a stage for any kind of performance. But in my senior year, a friend dragged me into it and I ended up competing with my school in UIL One Act Play. And we did pretty good! I got to miss class here and there to travel around the state with a bunch of great people and face an awesome challenge for me. By the end of the year I even walked away with a few medals for best actor, which still shocks me to this day! I really like this story because I’m proud of stepping into the unknown and conquering my fears with success. The experience really instilled a better sense of confidence in me.
In my Junior year of high school I ended up taking an intro to computer science class. We were a smaller high school (I had a graduating class of around 150) and this was the only course on the subject that was offered. I wish I could say that I got a lot out of it, but honestly I walked away with no knowledge of computer science. Instead, I left with some very basic knowledge of beginner java programming. There was a higher level computer science class which I had hoped would remedy this, but the professor had left by the time my senior year came around and the course was no longer offered. The subject had my interest however because I was fascinated with the idea of being able to create something that could so easily be distributed as far as I wished. The field truly felt limitless. Every day in that intro class I would finish my work for the day in about 15 minutes or so, and then I would use the rest of the class period to work on little games on a website called Scratch. There was no code involved for this, the website has you drag blocks around to define behaviors at a high level. So, there was no real technical challenge necessary for this, but I loved the idea of creating something that others could interact with and find value in. That idea really pushed me towards Computer Science.
Growing up in Texas, I always had the University of Texas on my radar. Its widely known for being one of the best schools in the state. More specifically, it was known for having one of the most prestigious Computer Science programs in the state, if not the nation. UT was a no brainer for me.
I’m currently a senior here at UT and I’ve learned so much. I arrived here with practically no knowledge or experience of computer science or programming and as a result I struggled a LOT, especially early on. I felt like I was fighting an uphill battle and I probably was. But over time, I found my footing and I succeeded. The number one most important thing that I’ve learned at UT is that there is so much that I don’t know. My own field is full of very difficult and complicated things which I still am ignorant of. However, UT has taught me that I have the ability to conquer any of these things. I’ve been faced with the challenging unknown before, and I have overcome it. I enter my final semester with the acceptance of the fact that while I’ve learned more than I could have imagined, there is so much which still remains unknown. And despite that, I have full confidence that when I am faced with that unknown in the future, I have the tools available to make it known.
This semester, I have decided to take this class simply because I did not feel that I could graduate, in good faith, with a degree in Computer Science from the University of Texas without having the experience that I expect this course to provide. Being faced with the challenge of building a fully functional web application with a group of strangers is something that I have not done before. After this semester, I will no longer be able to say that, and I will be able to go forward in the future, confidant that I have the experience and knowledge to do so again. I am greatly looking forward to the months ahead.
