…with a minor in being unprepared

I’ve really wanted to throw a quick update on here for quite some time, but I think that once you read this, it should be clear why it took me until the end of week 3 to do so. 

I started out taking ECE 321 (microelectronics), ECE 372 (embedded system design) and MTH 256 (differential equations).  The ECE classes both have labs, and the math class is 5 credits, so right there I am at 15 credits.  Also, it’s application season, and while I tried to complete the Ford Family Foundation scholarship application over the break, it just didn’t happen.  I needed to apply to grad school too, and that actually required two different applications.  Throw going from complete physical lethargy to working out or running 5 days per week and you could say my plate was full.

Then I saw the email.  The one that had actually arrived a week earlier, but I had somehow missed until the end of week 1.  It was from my advisor, and in more words he basically told me to immediately change my schedule: he said that the spring session of CS 333 was completely useless, so I should drop MTH 256 and take CS 333 this term instead.  I frantically emailed the CS instructor and she told me that she would let me into the class but that I already had labs to make up.  My schedule had to be reworked to make CS 333 (Operating System Programing) fit, but fortunately everything fit.

Fast forward to the first lab of CS 333.  Everything is done in Linux, on the command line, which I have never used.  I’m completely lost, and I’m getting all kinds of raised eyebrows asking questions like “how do I copy a file?” The room we are in (intentionally) has no Internet access, so there is no way to look any of this stuff up, and if you haven’t submitted your work within 3 hours, the computer turns itself off and you fail the lab. Do that twice and you fail the course.   Hypertension, anyone?

And that was just the first lab. I nearly walked out during the second one.  Then I thought about what that would mean (not getting into grad school, having to pay back all my financial aid) and I got back to work.  But the fact remains that regardless of how much I want to learn the material, and how helpful it will be professionally, I really shouldn’t be in that class given my lack of prerequisite knowledge about Linux.  It will be interesting to see how that all goes.  And by interesting I mean difficult and stressful. 

ECE 321 is proving to be quite a challenge too.  Good thing we get to use notes sheets on the test, because there is no way in hell I would remember that the triode region of a PMOS is given by:

It’s really more of a chemistry class for people who want to manufacture transistors and ICs and stuff, which I most certainly am not interested in, but hopefully I will make it.

That’s about all the time I have right now, but basically this is the hardest term of my life.  I know superlatives aren’t to be just tossed around, but in this case the statement is demonstrably accurate.  However, as of this week I did get all my scholarship/grad school applications completed and submitted, so there's that...