Today, I completed a book I never thought I'd finish—honestly, I didn't even plan to start it. I was in a bookstore looking for something new to read. I picked up one book, and then I stumbled upon this one. It was on my subject: Algorithms.
I almost put it back. It was a Sunday, so I figured, why not flip through it right there? Just check the index, skim a few pages, maybe revise a topic or two if something caught my eye. I was confident I already knew most of it. I treated it like a typical syllabus book.
Back at my desk, I opened the index. The first thing that hit me: What is an algorithm? I laughed—really? College students need to read this stuff? Then: graphs… sorting… searching. “Yeah, I know this,” I thought. Also, who teaches graphs before sorting and searching? Come on. But then—PageRank, deep learning. That caught me off guard. I assumed it was just an overview. Still, something about it made me pause.
The Unexpected Discovery
I started reading—Introduction, then Chapter One: What Are Algorithms? Story after story after story. I was like, what is going on? I don't know this stuff.
The author explained the origin of theories in such a beautiful way. I got lost in the book and ended up reading it cover to cover. This wasn't a syllabus book. It was a book written to show the beauty of algorithms and how they emerged from real-world problems.
Life Lessons
By the end, I took away two life lessons:
- Never judge a book by its cover.
- Solutions are often simple—the beauty lies in how you find them.
And yes, the book ended with my favorite character: Alan Turing.
No formal ending to this note—just pure learning. Now, I'm picking up books I once thought I wouldn't like.