CS371p Fall 2020: Kent Hansen

Hello! I’m Kent, a junior at UT studying Computer Science and Geography. I grew up in the Austin suburb of Cedar Park, about 30 minutes from the UT campus, although I was born and spent the first two years of my life in Puerto Ordaz, Venezuela where my parents lived for 12 years. I attended Leander High School where I first started learning how to code. It was because of the computer science classes that I took in high school that I began to see programming and computer science as a way to solve all kinds of problems in any kind of field. I have always been interested in learning about places around the world and this interest turned more specifically to the study of cities around the same time in high school. I decided to go to UT for a few reasons. My three older siblings had all made the same decision, it was close to home and, most importantly, I recognized that I could take classes in Computer Science, Geography, History, or any other field that interested me and receive a meaningful and engaging education.

I decided to take this class because I have a desire to stretch my abilities to code and to create software. When I was learning about the course, I was pleased to see that not only would we engage with a new (for me) programming language but also we would learn about the processes and tools for developing good software. By the end of this course, I am hoping not only to gain some valuable experience using C++ but also to learn how to be a better programmer and software developer.

My pick-of-the-week for this week is a static-site generation platform called Gatsby. Gatsby allows you to easily create static websites using React, making it possible to add pages, content, and dynamic features without dealing with lots of setup or boilerplate code. I have been using Gatsby for a project I am working on for a lab at UT that I started working with this summer and it has made development simple and enjoyable without compromising customizability.

That’s all for this week, I am looking forward to a great semester!