Prior to this week, I didn't know how to use LaTeX. So when I figured out that Assignment 1 had to be typed and couldn't just have been scanned into a PDF file, I started trying to download LaTeX and getting it to work. It took me a while before I realized that it needed a separate compiler editor to let me type. Even after having gotten the editor, I didn't know how to start a typing. I tried using the only symbol I knew in LaTeX (\forall) but nothing showed up in the preview. I eventually looked at the online editors and saw that I needed to use \start{document} and the closing \end{document} to encompass all of my text. I found this to be a hassle.
Not knowing most of the symbols, I had to browse through online sources to figure how to compute them. Mostly using Piazza to start a new post and looking under the symbols tab for the right command and then not saving the post. Although it took me a while to learn to be comfortable with LaTeX (about a day), I realized how much easier it is to use it rather than copying and pasting symbols into Word.
Then one day, Professor Heap told us during a lecture that we are allowed to just type things like \exists and \forall in Word. I started to think that it wasn't necessary for me to learn LaTeX. However, while working on assignment 1 late at night, trying to correct any potential errors before submitting it before the deadline, it struck me how much more manageable it was to simply look at symbols that matched the ones I wrote down on paper for my draft. This was especially so because I was feeling tired by then and would have easily missed translated symbols and words with '\'. Thus it caused to be greatful that I learned LaTeX. Plus it's similarity to programming languages helped me connect back to programming, which I have not done a lot of since I entered University for Computer Science ironically.
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