CS371p Spring 2022: Kyzer Polzin

1. Where did you grow up?

I grew up in a town outside of Fort Worth called Haslet.

2. What high school did you attend?

It was called VR Eaton High School.

3. What was your favorite extracurricular activity in high school?

Unfortunately, I didn’t do too many extracurriculars in high school — one of my regrets about the time. However, I did participate in UIL Academics and did the Journalism events and that was always fun and put me out of my comfort zone.

4. Why did you come to UT?

It is relatively close to home, in-state tuition, elite CS program, good city. There really isn’t many reasons not to come to UT if you live in Texas and are interested in STEM.

5. Why are you majoring in CS?

Honestly, I don’t really know how why I chose to go down CS when I graduated high school. However, now I’ve realized I made the right choice because this line of work is challenging, lucrative, and secure. It requires continuous learning and technology is becoming ever more necessary to society, thus meaning my work could potentially have a meaningful impact on the world.

6. Why are you in this class?

I really like Downing as a professor and OOP is always a skill that can be improved upon. I genuinely think this class will make me a better engineer.

7. What are your expectations of this class?

I don’t have too many. I just expect that this class will make me more fluent in C++ and also I expect it will enhance my skills as an engineer.

8. How much C/C++ do you already know?

I know a fair amount of both languages. I’m a little rusty working through the nuances of the languages and I also am not knowledgeable of everything in the STL.

9. How did you like the first lectures?

I really like the format of the lectures. However, they feel extremely short and I don’t know how much we will be able to cover each lecture between doing the quizzes, reviewing them, etc.

10. How did you feel about the cold-calling?

The cold calling always makes me a little nervous, but I do how it enhances classroom engagement.

11. What made you happy this week?

First week was pretty easy-going and my schedule seems relatively manageable. Spent some time with some friends and overall had a pretty good week.

12. What’s your pick-of-the-week?

My pick-of-the-week is simply Microsoft’s acquisition of Activision. This is my pick-of-the-week because it can largely influence the future of the Metaverse and the tech needed to make it a reality. After playing with my friend’s Oculus the past few weeks, I’ve begun to think about the future of tech regarding the Metaverse — it is both scary and exciting to me and this move by Microsoft to acquire a huge gaming publisher only emphasizes how near this new future is.