From Curiosity to Mastery: My Computer Science Journey at Dartmouth College

The author, Qi Yiming, joined Ctrip in 2016 as a technical expert and shares his personal story of how he began learning computer science at Dartmouth College, an Ivy League liberal‑arts university in New Hampshire.

Dartmouth follows a quarter system with four ten‑week terms per year; students earn 36 credits to graduate, with one‑third dedicated to a major. The liberal‑arts environment allows the first two years to explore diverse subjects before committing to a major.

In his freshman spring, he took CS5 – an introductory Java course covering recursion, modular and object‑oriented programming, with numerous short and lab assignments, exams, and support from TAs and Section Leaders.

Motivated by this experience, he enrolled in CS8 the following fall, a functional‑programming class using Haskell. Projects included drawing a snow‑flake fractal and implementing a Tetris game, where he acted as both product manager and developer.

During his sophomore winter term he simultaneously took CS19 (Discrete Mathematics) and CS23 (Software Design and Implementation). In CS23 he learned C, building a web search engine and a robotics application that controlled a toy car via wireless sensors.

In his junior and senior years he pursued advanced courses such as CS44 (Artificial Intelligence), CS85 (Computational Topology), Introduction to Algorithms, Theory of Computation, Operating Systems, Machine Learning and Statistical Data Analysis, gaining experience in search, probabilistic reasoning, neural‑network‑based face recognition, and algorithmic problem solving.

The narrative emphasizes the intense focus on grades and GPA in U.S. universities, the competitive nature of computer‑science majors at Dartmouth, and the limited number of students who stay for a 4+1 master’s program.

He concludes with reflections on the importance of hard work, passion, and continuous learning for computer‑science students and professionals.