End of Q4 Week 1

Sarah Hanson
Aug 26, 2017 · 3 min read

I had to double check the calendar to verify that we’ve only been back in class for one week, it’s been a long one!

Before we embark on our capstone projects and job hunting journeys, we are focusing on Computer Science in Quarter 4. This week we’ve specifically gone over Data Structures and sorting algorithms. I’ve been able to recall a lot of the overall concepts from my undergraduate education, and can still code my way through various structures and sorting algorithms. But I think I’m most rusty on trees, graphs (which we will cover next week), and implementing the more advanced sorts (merge and quick sort). Oh, and recursion has been a stickler at times but I think that’s just the nature of recursion no matter how experienced you are. It’s been pretty fun revisiting and reenforcing this stuff, but at the pace we’ve been going, we’ll run out of material very quickly and soon be thrown into our capstone projects!

Thinking about capstone has me a bit stressed lately. I thought I would want to start working on it early, but I’ve opted to wait. When I sit back and think about it, 2 weeks ought to be plenty of time. Just trying to relax, stay calm, and not worry needlessly.

I am a bit eager to work on job searching, though. We have a few more scheduled sessions with Nicole that I’m looking forward to. I don’t think I will be taking any extended time off after completing my Galvanize coursework; I’d like to continue working hard on polishing my projects, researching jobs, and continuing to learn.


Speaking of continuing to learn, over my break I created a simple React Native app. It’s a Sinclair and Masters Sinclair calculator. In a nutshell, Sinclair coefficients help determine winners in weightlifting competitions. I completed the basic functionality and styling, but I ran into some issues when I tried to optimize it. I got tripped up on communication between parent and child components. The Sinclair formula and the Masters Sinclair formula are very similar, the only difference is that you have to include the athlete’s age for the Master’s Sinclair (which subsequently modifies the formula a bit). I thought I could create a generic Form component and use it for both calculators, and just add an additional age input on the Master’s screen. But then, I wasn’t sure where I should store the state information. I could have worked around all of that by only making one big giant form, but I thought it would be more user-friendly to separate the forms using tab navigation. I ended up not using a Form component and repeating code for both screens. I may try to find a peer with more React Native experience to sit down with me and help me through these and other minor issues. My next steps are gonna be to clean up the code and styling a bit, and then try to get it published eventually.

Screenshots from my Nexus 6.
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Sarah Hanson

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Full stack web developer; competitive weightlifter

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