Me, in front of some cows! Wow!

Alex Class

Who Am I?

Hello! I'm Alex, and I'm a freshman[1] at the University of Colorado, Boulder[2], studying Computer Science[3]. I grew up in Berkeley, California[citation needed], and yes -- it is a large part of my personality.

I made this website mostly to practice coding, but also to introduce myself to others; I hope, for the purpose of the bit, you've been directed here by a shitty cardstock buisiness card that I, Alex, awkwardly handed to you in-person.

This website could, obviously, be better / more modern / prettier; believe me, I tried to figure out how to use Tailwind like, twice before giving up and using the good ol' 1990s-core HTML/CSS stack[4].

If you, dear reader, are the type of person who thinks it's cool to make hobby projects using old, crusty software (as if cursed by an Installation Wizard to roam forever the year 2003), then, I say to you: this was all intentional! Look at how cool I am!

Otherwise: well, I start college in two weeks, and I kinda need this site to be up and running before I get there. That's basically what Agile Development is, right?

For budget reasons, this site is (at the moment) both my resume and a blog-of-sorts, in equal parts. An easy way to display my credentials, and an easy way to share a little about myself. (This overlap wasn't intentional; it came about mostly because I am a dirt-poor undergrad. Paying hosting fees for one site is already treading on thin ice.)

So you, dear reader, must either be a curious peer of mine (great, I hope you enjoyed the whole buisiness card bit) -- or a recruiter who, judging by the fact that you're on my website, maybe jumped the gun a little on letting underclassmen apply to their job listing.

I hope, before anyone serious reads this page, I remember to clean it up and make it somewhat professional -- but, clearly, that hasn't happeend yet. So, recruiters, if you're reading this, I apologize in advance. Curious friends, uh, I suppose be prepared to suddenly want to hire me for your startup?? Hopefully???

Computer Science Experience

You can view my resume here. Otherwise, here's an abbreviated version:

• Languages I kinda-sorta know:

  • - Python
  • - R
  • - C++
  • - Java
  • - C#
  • - PHP
  • - JavaScript
  • - HTML / CSS

• Position 1: Teaching Assistant, Academic Talent Development Program

  I have four summers' worth of experience working as a Teaching Assistant (TA) for a few high-school level computer science courses. The program is called the Academic Talent Development Program (ATDP), under the wing of the UC Berkeley School of Education, and it exists basically to fill empty UC Berkeley classrooms during the summer and give a bunch of parents in Fremont a way to get their kids out of Fremont for the summer (a long commute -- 13 whole BART stations away!)

  IMO, the kids do learn some real coding skills; for instance, taking a class at ATDP is how I learned to do the frontend for the very website you're reading right now! That class was called Elements of Web Design, and it's what I've TAed for, for the past 4 years. Additionally, this past summmer, I picked up a job as a TA for an overengineered statistics course called Data Science with R. You'll never guess what that one was about.

• Position 2: Lighting Tech, Albany High School Theater

  Okay, so… working as a pre-collegiate CS TA is the only "proper" job I've ever had.

  But when has """properness""" ever stopped someone from including a position in their resume?

  Thus, I'd feel remiss without including my experience with my main high school extracurricular: working in the sweatshop that is the AHS Little Theater. Past productions include Mamma Mia, Mean Girls, and Beauty & The Beast. Don't get me wrong, I had a blast, but jesus they worked us to the bone -- during our tech weeks (the two weeks leading up to each opening night) we were there from, like, 3pm to 9pm. On top of school. It was rough. And unpaid. It got me to use some of my CS skills, though!

  Anyway, if you ever need to know anything about, like, "gamut" or whatever, shoot me an email.

The guitar strap I sewed, attatched to my guitar

Music

I love playing music in my free time, and I'm hoping to pick up a certificate in Music Technology here at CU Boulder. Though, dear reader, I wouldn't get too excited; I haven't actually finished any songs yet, so I don't have much to show for it. I know. Underwhelming.

Here's what I can brag about, though:

• - 10 years of experience playing piano (please do not ask me to play anything; not only am I extremely out of practice, but I also harbor an ancient and demonic fear of performing two different parts at the same time -- unfortunately, this superstition includes most piano pieces that utilize both the left and right hands.)
• - 1 year playing guitar (please ask me to play something with my guitar, it's so much easier than playing piano.)
• - 3 months playing electric bass. It's just a better version of the guitar. I regret not bringing one with me to college.
• - 6 years playing lead trombone in my schools' jazz bands. The instrument can only ever play one note at a time, so if you can get me a trombone, it's probably fair game to ask me to play something. The demons won't stop me.
• - I've been tinkering around with DAWs for the past 2 years; I actually just started learning FL Studio the other week, after floundering through the open-source heaven/hell that is Reaper. If you know FL Studio, please feel free to contact me -- I'd gladly trade snacks for lessons.
• - Also here's my Spotify playlist. It's 2,000 songs long. Please sort by recently added, or else confront this unholy truth: I listened to a lot of Weezer in Middle School.

Ironically, the only concrete thing I have to show for this whole endevour is my guitar itself (pictured), which I found, in not-great condition, on the side of the road walking home from school one day.

I replaced its strings, resoldered its connections, and sprayed a whole can of WD-40 into its gears, and now it's in (well, not perfectly) working order!

I also sewed the guitar strap attatched to it; that project took many trips to local fabric stores, several trips down YouTube rabbit holes, and a trip to a local camping supply repair store, which sourced me the nylon webbing holding the whole thing together. Shoutout Narain's Outdoor Gear Sewing & Fabric Repairs. They're real ones.

(Side note: if you wanna jam, let me know!)

Drawing

Boy am I bad at it!

For the past three years, I've been trying to teach myself how to draw. Like, by myself, working through an art textbook. I claim it's because the process is more meditative this way, but really I'm just scared of the confrontation that comes with taking a real art class. I'm also, coincidentally, afraid of the constructive criticism and personal growth that would come with taking a real art class.

I'm hoping to take some figure drawing classes here at Boulder when I have some free elective slots, but my current forte is the study of (and occational practice of) making comics. That means a semi-encylopedic knowledge on quite literally the geekiest topic I can think of: indie graphic novels. And manga. And manhwa. And, yes, even mainstream beat-em-up superhero comics. It was -- almost literally -- the only media I consumed in high school.

One day, I wanna publish my own graphic novel, but that's a far off goal I keep knocking around the ol' noggin to make it seem like I have aspirations beyond selling my soul as a code monkey working at Google.

Here are some sketches from my, well, sketchbook, to give you a sense of how woefully far I am from my goals:

Baking

My deep, dark secret is that I'm actually very good at baking. Like, objectively. I wish I was good at something more generally applicable, like mathmatics or executive planning, but the way the cards shook out, I'm stuck with the ability to create endless desserts on demand.

I've made a lot of cakes, cookies, etc, but my proudest achievement, perhaps across all my hobbies, are these kickass marionberry / lemon macarons I made:

(Macaronage)

(Post-bake)

(Assembly)

It's gonna be a while before I top that. Anyway, if you've got a stocked kitchen and need a cake for, like, a funeral or whatever, just contact me and I'll be over there stat.

Some Images of Myself, So You Can Recognize Me on the Street:

I fused these dice together! Magically!

Alex approves of this trendy international boba chain! Very nice!

Look at this parrot! I am, essentially, a pirate captain!

Anyway, that's about it! Thanks for reading through my rambling personal statement! Now go do something productive with your time -- like study! Or drink a glass of water! That's always a good idea.