Marcell Purham

Skateboarding is fun

Warm up at the diamond park #boardslide #skateboarding

First week in #California #sunny #summer

Chicago - The city of the great

Having fun at Motorola Photo Booth

The only way to advance and overcome the downsides of life is to move forward. Nobody wants to get rejected nor feel that they do not have the right skill-set for a job. My problem was I started out as a designer / front-end developer and that is mainly what my portfolio showcases. I've built websites in php, setup a full stack web server, created a full-blown web application but a lot of that is not showcased in my portfolio. You can be the most talented developer in the world, but if no one can see your work or witness your skill-set then why are you applying to jobs. I decided over the summer to write more programs and contribute to open source projects so that I can become a great back-end developer. I want to be the "best" I can be when it comes to programming and never want to stop learning. The only way to be the best is to work hard, collaborate, and communicate with peers so that you can someday become great at what you do. ABL fellow and aspiring coders!

Logistics Hackathon! We did it. Thanks Kenneth and Corey for making great teammates

So it's been a while since I've last posted on here but lets not make excuses. Over the last month or so I've been extremely busy with school. If you've read my blog before this post you might have noticed that I was not doing so well during my midterm. To sum it all up I decided to drop mathematics(still finished the book), and focus on biology which was a very tough class. During the last week of school I ended up passing my final exam and was ready for my new year at the University of Chicago, which is the school I will be attending in the fall. It's been a very good year for me since I have accomplished a lot of my goals for 2013. I look forward to the rest of the year in my "new" life in Chicago. Over the next couple of weeks I will be in search of a job so if all goes well I will soon be employed by someone. Until then keep working hard and reaching for the stars.

As I realized that I am not during horribly bad in my classes I have concluded that I need to not only study more but actually fully understand what I am studying. As a student who works hard with everything, I am willing to give up my days to study for exams and test so that I can reach my maximum potential, not only in programming but in my academic studies as well. I will keep this blog updated with my progress at the end of the semester and future goals.

Today was the last of my finals for this semester and I must say that it has been one heck of a ride. I was determined to finish strong and work hard this semester so that it could place me closer to achieving my dreams. I took 5 classes this semester such as two 8 week college algebra courses, sociology(Social Problems), World Civilization, and Humanities. Out of all those classes I found math to be the class that really push me forward. Math was similar to programming in my eyes because the more you practice and work and actually solve problems the better you become at your craft, which was the case when I applied things I learned in class to programming. We started math in August of 2012 and meet everyday for 16 weeks, 2 hours a day. As a person who is not keen on math I was working very hard and wanted to make it to the finish line in which I did. I look forward to next semester as I take on Biology and Mathematics. I will continue to work hard so that I can achieved my ultimate goal which is to obtained my degree in computer science. Can't stop won't stop!

Fall 2012 Semester This semester I have taken two math courses in which both are required for my computer science degree. No they are not calculus(I,II,III Which I need) courses but I am slowly making my way towards calculus. A year in half ago I believed math was something I did not need so I did not work hard in it. As a student who did not care about math nor understood math at this level I now see that math is very important and things that I did not get in high school I now get a technical level. This semester I decided to take two college algebra courses. The first course, which was 8 weeks, covered the basics such as fractions, polynomials, formulas, rules etc. The second course which I am now in covers a lot more than the basics like quadratic formulas, in depth word applications, functions etc. As I've taken this course I am amazed with the amount of information that I can remember in a short period of time. In both 8 week math classes we covered 2 chapters a day and meet 2 hours a day, 5 days a week. Learning Since taking this math class not only has it open my eyes to the world of mathematics but has also opened my eyes to programming and problem solving. In math we would get an application problems and I would interpret what the problems was saying and try to come up with an equation that would help me solve the problem. Yes you might so go figure but as I looked at the problem I tried to think of multiple ways I could approach the problem and think beyond by thinking of my owns ways to come up with a solution. We are all unique in our own ways in have different ways of coming up with a solution or answer.The learning process is different for all of us no matter who you are. Some individuals learn things faster while others learn slower. If you're a slow problem solver do not worry you will get better as you practice more just as I did. The worst thing is trying to solve a problem without knowing where to start. My purpose for writing this post is to show that if you put your mind to whatever you're learning whether it is programming, bio, math etc, that you can do it. Yes things seem difficult at the start but as you work more with the things you're uncomfortable with they start to become easier to understand. So next time you're solving a problem look at the problem carefully and look at it from all angles because as I like to say it the only way to learn is to fully understand the material you're trying to learn.

Chicago from John Hancock

Chicago from the north

Today I bummed the quiz getting a 3/10 on it but the mistakes were minor. Even though the mistakes were minor a bad grade is a bad grade. After class I worked on more problems that were similar to the problems on the quiz so I could better understand what I was doing. After working on all problems in about 3-4 hours I finally understood my mistakes and am ready for the test.