It's all her fault; my programming start

I graduated from Willowbrook High School (Villa Park, IL) in 1975. The photo to the left is from my senior yearbook. During my time there, I was active in the band all four years, where I played the tambourine in the marching and pep bands, when I wasn't playing clarinet in the band. (I still have both instruments, but haven't played either in years.) I also took the usual compliment of academic courses. One course in particular is worth mentioning in this post: Computer Programming.

If my memory is correct, the 1974-1975 school year was the first year the Computer Programming course was offered. The first half of the year we learned the Basic programming language (the original Basic, not today’s Visual Basic), and then moved on to Fortran by the end of the academic year. The class was taught by Judith Sims, who taught both Mathematics and Computer Programming that year. We typed our programs on a teletype machine (shown at right) that created a record of it on yellow punched tape. The teletype machines were connected to a computer at some Illinois university, but I am not sure what one. In retrospect, Willowbrook was well ahead of the time; many high schools have only started offering a computer programming course in recent years. Little did I know how fortunate I was at the time.

During the fall of 1975, I attended Manchester University (at that time it was Manchester College) in North Manchester, Indiana. I graduated from Manchester in the spring of 1979 with a BS in Social Work, and an AA in Computer Applications.The photo to the left is from my senior yearbook. (The hair didn't change much.) I started with no major in mind, ultimately declaring Social Work, after a few semesters. However, I kept taking the occasional computer class from Dale McCauley (where I started using 80-column punched cards, shown below) to fill out my course schedule each semester, because I enjoyed it in high school. At some point, I think in my junior year, I realized if I took a couple more specific computer courses, I’d satisfy the AA requirements. (I still have many of my programs on punched cards!) During my time at Manchester, I learned the FORTRAN, COBOL, RPG and APL programming languages.

Soon after graduation, the opportunity to interview for a computer programming position presented itself, and I started my first professional job on July 1, 1979 at the N.G. Gilbert Corporation (which later merged with Townsend Tree Service Co. Inc.), in Muncie, Indiana. I was employed by that company for 28 years, starting as a computer programmer, and leaving as the Information Services Manager, when the position was eliminated in October 2007. I enjoyed those nearly three decades getting a computer to do what the company needed. While at Gilbert/Townsend I used the Fortran, RPG, and COBOL languages, and learned the Protos programming language and database management techniques, while transitioning from punched cards, to terminals, to PCs, networks, and the WWW.

After a few months of job and soul searching, I decided to go back to school. In January 2008, I enrolled at Ball State University (Muncie, IN) and started work on a Computer Science master’s degree—at the age of 50! The hope was to make myself more employable. God was watching over me, as within less than a week's time, I decided to apply to graduate school, was accepted, and was offered a graduate assistantship that provided tuition remission, and a modest stipend. While at BSU, I learned the Java, JavaScript, HTML, and Python programming languages.

Midway through my graduate coursework, I came to realize that I enjoyed teaching, and shifted my thinking that direction. I had taught the occasional night course at the Muncie, IN campus of Ivy Tech a few decades earlier, so teaching was not a totally foreign concept to me. As I was completing my master’s degree in the spring of 2010, the opportunity to interview for a full-time contract teaching position in the Computer Science department at Ball State presented itself. This spring, I’m completing my twelfth year teaching full time at BSU. Despite my enjoyment of working in industry, I’ve found during the last dozen years that I enjoy teaching even more. The photo to the left is one that Kinsey Reese took of me yesterday for use in BSU publications. (The hair has changed a bit. It's now white, longer, and pulled back. Oh, and I've a beard.)

Since serving as a university professor, I’ve had the privilege to interact with thousands of learners and spark interest in computer science, as well as life-long learning. I’ve been able to conduct research, and present my results at conferences, both domestic and international. (The photo to the right is me presenting at ICER 2010 in Aarhus, Denmark, my first academic conference presentation.) And it all got it’s start at Willowbrook High School nearly 50 years ago in Judith Sims' computer programming course.

For the last year or so I've tried to locate Judith Sims to let her know that it’s her "fault" I've ended up where I am today, and to let her know that I appreciate that. Having just been named an Institutional Winner of the Mid-American Conference Outstanding Faculty Award for Student Success, I think she'd be pleased. Unfortunately, I've not yet been successful in locating her. If you happen to know her, let her know. If you happen to know someone who might know her, please let them know. 

If you've not reached out to a teacher to tell them thank you for helping you get to where you are today, take time to do that now. It may be your only opportunity to do so, and will mean the world to them. Trust me.

Photo credits:
Teletype by Rama & Musée Bolo, CC BY-SA 2.0 FR, via Wikimedia Commons
Punched card by Pete Birkinshaw from Manchester, UK, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons
School/university logos owned by the respective school/universities