#CodingLabStudents: Lucas Tan, 13, St. Joseph’s Institution
At Coding Lab, we are passionate about empowering our students to reach new heights and commemorating the remarkable achievements of our students. Introducing our #CodingLabStudent of the month, Lucas Tan, 13, who is currently attending St. Joseph’s Institution after successfully gaining an offer through DSA via coding!
Lucas also has gained various coding achievements, such as the Silver Award in the Hwa Chong Infocomm Challenge (HCIC) 2023 and the Judge’s Choice Award in the International Coding Showcase (ICS) 2022.
Starting from age 8, he has been with us at Coding Lab due to his interest in Artificial Intelligence. Now, let’s learn more about Lucas’ exciting coding journey!
“In this age, knowing how to code is an essential skill for most people. It teaches us to be creative, persistence and patience. In the future, coding will help us streamline a lot of manual processes so that we can be more efficient.”
Presenting Lucas, our brilliant #CodingLabStudent!
Hi Lucas, tell us more about yourself! What do you do in your free time?
Hello, I am Lucas and I am 13 years old. I like to play floorball and video games! I love strategy games like Civilization.
Congratulations on getting into your dream school! Since you applied for schools through DSA with coding, can you let us know which schools you got an offer from?
Hello, I got an offer from St. Joseph’s Institution, and I gladly accepted since I want to go there!
What do your family and friends say when they find out that you know how to code?
Most of my family and close friends know that I like to maths and figuring out codes, so they are not surprised that I know how to code. When I managed to code a new game, I usually like to let my friends try it out.
When did you become interested in coding?
I still remember just before I started my coding lessons, I was very interested in A.I, I thought that A.I would probably shape the future and I thought that I wanted to learn that skill. After my parents found this out, they decided to send me to Coding Lab.
What do you like most about coding? How has coding made a difference in your life?
Usually if I needed to get an application to help me, I would download it from the app store or Google Play. However, after I learnt coding, I could think of all the possible ways to code them and create the application myself. I think coding has taught me how to solve problems creatively and be patient, as we need a lot of patience to work through the bugs and run the formula carefully.
“Coding can be hard to understand. You just need to have the patience to slowly go through your code to debug it!”
How did you get started at Coding Lab?
My parents signed me up for scratch trial lesson in Coding Lab when I was 8. I found it really interesting and asked my parents to let me take more advanced lessons after I completed the trial lessons. I usually like the final product of my 5 week courses and it feels very satisfying.
What are some difficulties that you faced while learning to code and how did you overcome them?
Sometimes I come across some code that I cannot solve or when I encounter bugs that made my code not work, I get frustrated and want to give up. But I tell myself that I can overcome the problems by patiently looking through my code to identify the mistake and bugs, and correct it.
Why do you think learning to code is so important?
In this age, knowing how to code is an essential skill for most people. It teaches us to be creative, persistence and patience. In the future, coding will help us streamline a lot of manual processes so that we can be more efficient.
What are your future aspirations? What do you want to be when you grow up?
I would like to be a geneticist when I grow up. I want to learn about genes and DNA, and how to cure genetic diseases which are caused by genetic mutations like cancer. I hope I can create a programme that can detect mutations early and figure out how to stop cancer cells from multiplying.
Any advice and tips for those learning or starting to code?
If I had one tip, it would be that sometimes, coding can be hard to understand. You just need to have the patience to slowly go through your code to debug it.
Thank you, Lucas, for sharing more about your aspirations and tips for other coders. We are sure that you will achieve your dream after seeing your dedication towards programming!
At Coding Lab, we encourage our students to apply their coding skills and give back to society in their own ways. With coding, our students can do so much, from working on websites with a focus on raising awareness to creating fun, educational learning resources! We hope that Lucas’ journey has inspired you to take your first steps towards coding so that YOU can also make a difference!
Our #CodingLabStudents blogs feature our ambitious students and their ongoing coding journeys – be it the budding coder or advanced Python Pro, we appreciate each and every single one’s efforts as they progress to greater heights. 🌱
Coding Lab offers an award-winning curriculum specially for ages 5 to 18 – check out our courses to begin your own coding journey today!
Read Next: Coding Lab Student Feature: Jacob Xu, 13, NUS High School, HCIC 2023 Gold Award Winner
(Written by Thinzar)