Flashes of Panic

Somewhere early in my class notes for Algorithms—the class I nearly dropped—there is a note in the margin which reads, “Don’t let the gunners get you down.”

I write lots of irrelevant bits in the margins of my notes, getting the ideas out of my head before they derail my class focus. Today, I wanted to flip back and write that note again, as I caught a glimpse of one of my classmates with one hand in the air to answer a question, and three—three!—sharpened pencils in the other hand. Undoubtedly there’s a good explanation for that, but it’s easy to take little snapshots and use them to convince myself that everyone else in the class is more together and better prepared than I am.

“Gunners” is a term that’s familiar to law school students, but less so to CS students. I’m sure I was one, in my evening-college classes before I came here. It’s a funny feeling, when you feel like you get the material and you want to answer the questions and move on to the next exciting bit, rather than waiting as your classmates look perplexed and puzzled and fail to come up with the answer (or the confidence to put forward the answer they have.)

The problem is, one or two guys with all the answers can unintentionally fool the rest of us into thinking we don’t know any of the answers, unless we put our blinkers on and ignore them.

Now Playing: 10 A.M. Automatic from Rubber Factory by The Black Keys