Welcome!

R.W. (Rachel Wil) Singh (he/him/they/them)
Assistant Professor, Computer Science, Johnson County Community College

Background

I was originally born in Washington state but have lived in the KC Metro area since I was a pre-teen. My sister and I were homeschooled, and I began taking computer science classes at a local community college starting at the age of 14. I went on to UMKC for my Bachelor's in Computer Science and graduated with my BS in 2009.

I've worked in software and web development since 2010, though I've also been programming video games on my own since 2000 (working with C++ since 2002, when I was 14), and developing my own websites and Android apps on the side as an adult. I've worked at various sized companies, including Perceptive Software and Epiq Systems. Most of my work professionally has been with C++ or C#, as well as HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and various flavors of SQL.

I self-publish indie video games as well as cartoons in Esperanto in my spare time. I am currently also learning Hindi so that I can communicate with my husband's family better.

Courses I teach

• CS 134: Programming Fundamentals
• CS 200: Concepts of Programming Algorithms Using C++
• CS 210: Discrete Structures I
• CS 211: Discrete Structures II
• CS 235: Object-Oriented Programming using C++
• CS 250: Basic Data Structures using C++

Blog

• Spring 2024 Preparation (2023-12-14)
• Fall 2023 Reflections (2023-12-14)
• What students want in a teacher (2023-09-25)
• Classroom Modalities (2023-08-01)
• Lessons learned from group programming assignments (2023-07-11)
• Perks of Peer Review (2023-05-01)
• GWC games (2022-05-11)
• Preparing for Summer 2022 (2022-04-14)

Resource Links

I keep a lot of my course resources and tools on my gitlab.com/rachels-courses group on GitLab. These items are free for anyone to use, change around, etc. Generally, they're licensed as Creative Commons with Attribution.

Course based:

• Course textbooks - The notes I provide to students for the semester
• Course webpage - Course content homepages with links to assignments and resources
• C++ and tools Quick Reference
• C++ course resource links - lecture videos, reading, class archives
• C++ example code for all my courses
• CS 200 student repo template - A template repository with project starter code for students to fork
• CS 235 student repo template
• CS 250 student repo template
• Discrete Math archive - All the discrete math resources I've made for CS210 and CS211 at JCCC and CS191 at UMKC
• Data Structures visualizations - JavaScript based interactive visualizations for CS210 and CS211 topics
• Rachel's Computer Science notes - This includes the LaTeX files and PDF files for my textbooks, including:
  • Core Programming Concepts (CS200, CS235, some CS250)
  • Data Structures Notes (CS250)
  • Discrete Math Notes (CS210)

Utilities:

• Grading helper scripts
• Course utilities - Scripts to clone/pull from student repos, rename files
• Course building files, graphics, ideas
• Plaintext data generators and files
• C++ utilities - Stuff I use in C++ a lot, and also use in class code
• cuTEST - My C++ unit test framework, mostly used in my CS250 class for students (and myself) to test their data structures

Independent:

• My Programming YouTube channel - Various projects and programming resources, as well as other things, made free and publicly available.
• Beginner's Guide to Game Programming (2009) - While I was still a student at UMKC I worked on this series on game programming with C++. It has gotten over 350,000 views over the years!

Teaching Philosophy

Work in progress

Examples

You can view the webpages for my courses here: https://rachels-courses.gitlab.io/webpage/

You can also view my teaching/educational repositories here: https://gitlab.com/rachels-courses?sort=name_asc

Experience

Work in progress

https://www.linkedin.com/in/rachel-singh/

• Self-taught programming - C++ since 2002
• Graduated from Longview Community College with a BA in Computer Science in 2006.
  Phi Theta Kappa. Worked in the Math Lab as a tutor.
• Graduated from University of Missouri, Kansas City, with a BS in Computer Science in 2009.
  Cum Laude. Member of Upsilon Pi Epsilon honor society for Computing and Information Disciplines.
• Worked professionally as a software and web developer since 2010
• Independently creating and publishing apps and games since 2008 (indie works page)

Volunteering

• Girls Who Code/Let's Code! club JCCC chapter - Instructor/organizer. Jan 2018 - Dec 2022
• KC for Refugees, Volunteer/mentor. Jan 2018 - Present
• Girls Explore Tech KC, Volunteer. Aug 2016, Aug 2017
• Merit Badge Counselor, Boy Scouts of America. Nov 2013, Nov 2014
• CCCKC, a 501c3, Director of Web Design (2012-2013), President (2014)

Contact

Direct email: rsingh13 at jccc dot edu