In what ways have you considered sharing your coding knowledge and enthusiasm for computer science with others?
I'm currently taking AP Computer Science A to learn more about foundations, algorithms, and data structures, so I can share more in-depth knowledge with others. I am a tutor at our school, and reach out to students with difficulties in writing programs or understanding concepts. Rather than telling them the most elegant way to write a program, I help them think through the problem. I believe the only way for one to improve is by thought and research, instead of asking for help and depending on someone else. Just like when I gave my lecture on Swift in the school's CS club, I mainly focus on how and where I learned about Swift, but not on syntax or any detail. During HackTJ, an MLH Hackathon, I helped another team that had just started learning Swift. I taught them how to retrieve data from HealthKit, use AutoLayout, and solve conflicts.
In my spare time, I like to write entertaining apps and practical utilities. I value the idea of open source, therefore, I always open source my work on GitHub under the name ApolloZhu. For instance, during winter break, when I was applying for a learner's permit to drive in Virginia, I wrote DMV A-Z.
Besides sharing my own work, I also contribute to other's repositories. As a global citizen, I feel it is my responsibility to help others in my areas of expertise. Most of the time, I fix their small mistakes, and integrate Swift's characteristics into their code, like using computed property instead of a getter and a setter. I also fixed a bug that caused memory leaks in nghialv's MaterialKit.
I just came from China to the US, and I know many Chinese students are not able to read code and English documents as easily as native speakers, due to their limited English proficiency. With my English language skills and programming proficiency, I go to answer questions in Chinese programming forums and chat rooms. During vacations, I also make short videos on Swift, and post them on bilibili, one of China's biggest video distribution platforms. One example is the series I made during my last summer vacation on Swift's API Design Guidelines. I spent days thinking about examples other than the ones already provided to use in the video, just to make sure my video is really helpful, and not another casual tutorial.
Recently, I started a translation project on GitHub that translates subtitles of Stanford's Developing iOS 10 Apps with Swift into Chinese. Everyone should be able to learn how to code, and I hope by sharing my knowledge in English and Swift through this project, many people in China who are struggling with English can learn Swift more easily, and use Swift to develop utilities to complete chores, save time, and potentially change the world.