I took an AI class back in college 16-17 years ago. In that class we had to solve a sudoku puzzle using multiple approaches to find the fastest approach (backtracking, backward propagation, forward propagation) for a few difficult puzzles.

I definitely don’t remember much of the content in any of my college courses. But I could reimplement those algorithms today without a problem. It’s amazing how “doing” really contributes to good memory retention. It was also one of the projects that sparked a fire in me. It really showed me the possibilities of computers and computer science.