…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...

Return to the Land of the Living

I made it through another term.  Barely.  I’ve been done now for nearly a week, and I’ve been graciously making use of my brief opportunity to avoid contact with society to, well... avoid contact with society.  It’s been a while since I posted anything here, and I intend to bring everyone up to speed, but first, in the style of NPR’s Planet Money, I have a an indicator to share first.  For anyone who hasn’t heard the show, they always begin by sharing the “Planet Money Indicator” of the day, in which they first read off some arbitrary number, then tell you what it means.  The guy who presents the indicators has a reputation for always choosing indicators of bad things, as they usually have to do with unemployment or foreclosures or such, but if you’ve listened to financial news in the past 10 years that shouldn’t come as much of a surprise.  Alas, I digress.   

Today’s Random Sequential Indicator is 0.4.   

That’s the GPA hit I took when I received the first B of my postbac education.  Yes, I got an Asian F in Calculus II this term.  Now, I know one B isn’t the end of the world, but if I said I haven’t lost any sleep over it, I’d be lying.  I’ve never felt more cheated out of a grade in my life, my 4.0 is dead, and I have absolutely no recourse.  Not once were course evaluations offered or even mentioned, and if I bring my concerns forward now, AFTER I recieved my grade, I would  just sound like a whiney student upset with his grade.  And I assure you that though that description matches, I have good reasons to be upset.

I know this must sound ridiculous: A postbac student who has already met the requirements to receive graduate funding complaining about a single B in a subject which is supposed to be difficult, in a course that was taught at a community college.  So I’ll stop—right after I say this: I can count the number of questions I got wrong on all of the tests, homework, and exams combined on one hand.  Tell me, does it sound like I understand 80% (a B’s worth) of the material?

I have good news as well.  First, a brief review:  I was feeling really nervous about ECE 221 (Circuit Analysis) at the beginning of the term.  I had never done anything like it before, and I hadn’t completed either of the prerequisite courses.  Story of my life, I know.  So I studied my ass off, and got 100% on the first midterm.  The material was new but not difficult.  Around week 7 or 8, I went into the second midterm with 100% on my tests, over 100% on my homework, and 100% in my lab section, and received a 72%.  That really shocked me, and so I studied my ass off for the final but only pulled a 78% on it.  Had you asked me a few weeks ago which class I thought I would get a B in, I would have said 221 for sure.  My calculations put me with an 85%, which is the sturdiest of B’s, really, but thanks to the miracle of everyone else failing too, I scraped by with an A-, which given the circumstances, I am completely satisfied with.

Finally, ECE 371 (Microprocessor Design) was certainly the highlight of the term in terms of both my final grade and my overall enjoyment of the content and assignments. Despite being tricky at times, it was very interesting and rewarding, and I enjoyed it a lot.  Also, the professor teaching that course is my advisor, so it was absolutely unacceptable for me to get anything short of an A.  I did very well in 371 from the start (including getting a 95% on a test that took place a week earlier than I was anticipating, due to faulty notes) so while I knew I would probably be getting an A, it was a real relief to see that it had actually happened.

All things considered, I ended the term with a 3.6, so I doubt my cumulative GPA is much below 3.9.  That’s it for my academic debriefing, more posts to come soon…

Formula 409, Surprise Programming, and Exploding Integrals

This will make sense later

What an interesting couple weeks it's been.  Especially if you consider being repeatedly broadsided by the unexpected and moderately toxic to be interesting.  Because if you do, it’s been absolutely fascinating.

Exploding Integrals

I guess I will start with the most recent development...  When I started writing this, I was on the bus, on the way home from my second midterm in the calc class from Hell.  Unsurprisingly, the midterm was also a beast: The test itself was only 2 pages long, but as anyone who has taken calculus knows, integrals have a tendency to really blow up in your face once you start opening then up.  Even if you haven't taken calculus, you've probably stumbled into a classroom where someone just got done teaching a math class and seen that and every whiteboard and in the entire room is completely full of equations and math problems.  Well, there's a very good chance that it was a calc class, and that all of the writing on the boards was actually just one problem.   The test itself was only 2 pages long, but I filled up 7 and a half additional pages.  You know it's a bad sign when the professor comes to class with a stack of tests in one hand and an unopened ream of paper in the other.  

We'll see how I did on that test.  After speaking with some students after class, I seem to have missed the last problem (which was worth 12% of the grade) and if that's true, I automatically have a B (assuming I didn't miss anything else anywhere else.)  And remember, on the last test I got all of the answers right and I got a C.  So that’s awesome. 

Surprise Programming

My microprocessors midterm was an entirely different story; I was pretty prepared for it because it’s an awesome class and I really don’t mind doing the reading or homework, so it actually gets done.  Furthermore, we had a big project due this Thursday (the day of the test), which actually made for excellent review.  Anyway, Tuesday morning I woke up and really didn’t feel like going in, especially since we were just reviewing for the midterm, which I had been studying for all weekend.  I decided to do the right thing and go in; even though it was my only class that day, a little more review wasn’t going to hurt.

When I strolled into class, I noticed a few odd things… It was very quiet, the class was unusually full of people, and, oh yeah—EVERYONE WAS TAKING THE MIDTERM.  Because guess what? The midterm wasn’t on Thursday—it was on Tuesday.  I sat down and took a look at my notes.  Yep, there it is, right on the first page, underlined and in large letters: “MIDTERM: TUES NOV 8”. So really I have no clue what happened, but at the time I had larger things to worry about.  Like finishing the midterm with an hour less than everyone else in the room.   The professor allowed anyone who wanted to come to arrive an hour early to the midterm—an opportunity that anyone would be crazy to turn down, or forget about.

I’m really glad that the professor for that class taught us the 5-minute rule before I found myself in this situation.  If you haven’t heard of it, the 5-minute rule is a commonly-used tactic in engineering.  Here’s how it works:  Lets say your boss gives you an impossible deadline. Or you show up an hour late into a midterm you didn’t know was happening.  First, you totally freak out. Flip tables, yell, throw in some of self-pity or rage; just go crazy. It’s your five minutes and you can spend it how you like.  But after the five minutes is up, you have to start working.  You can start small, but you have to start.  

And even though I’m making a big deal out of this, I do think I did pretty well.  It was very shocking to walk in on it in progress, but I was pretty prepared.  Not to mention it was an open-book/open-notes test, and ultimately not very hard, especially if you had some programming under your belt, which I did.  As an added bonus, I looked like a total badass, strolling into class an hour late like a boss, “Pshh I don’t need the extra time for this bullshit test.”

Formula 409

This is a hard one to start, because drinking stories are just generally not something you should generally post online under your own name.  But I really think that the explanation that comes at the end of it is more vindicating than it is embarrassing, and ultimately, I am just proud of the story.  So much for my chances of going into politics…

We went over to a friend’s house for Halloween this year—They love Halloween, so they always throw a big party.   They also have a large home, so since there was drinking involved, the events were likely to go late, and drunk people were likely to be on the road, a few of the guests (ourselves included) decided to just stay the night.   We played charades, had a great time, and drank a little more than we would have if one of us had to drive home that night.  Or rather, I did.  I quite frankly don’t remember so much about the night.  What I do remember, though, is that the amount of drinking I did was certainly not capable of making me as violently ill as it actually did.  One moment, I was totally fine.  I was a bit toasty, yes, but certainly not drunk.  The next, I was experiencing their beautiful bathroom from a whole new level.  Then I woke up in bed the next morning totally fine.  No headache, no hangover, not even that tired.

I was so embarrassed.  I’ve only been sick from drinking two or three other times in my entire life, and I am pretty sure all of them were in college, so they don’t even count.  Everyone who had planned on staying decided to take off.  I’m sure no one would tell me this because they are all too nice, but I think I pretty much killed the party.  I couldn’t remember anything from after I started feeling ill.  And all of this at someone’s house, whom – despite the fact that we have become very good friends and love spending time together—we have really only known for the last 6 months or less.  

Fast forward to last weekend.  We are at Life of Riley’s, watching the Ducks with some friends.  Not the hosts of the party, but friends that were there nonetheless.  We order a round of beers and my friend mentions that I must be feeling better.  He says something about 409 that I don’t quite catch, and I stop him.  A few other people have mentioned 409 lately, and every time it was in relation to that Halloween party.  And he explains everything…

Apparently, towards the end of the night someone spilled a drink on the carpet.  Anyway, it was promptly spotted and cleaned up using 409. No big deal.  But my cup was right next to the spill, so while the area was being liberally doused with 409 to keep wine from staining the carpet, my glass was accumulating a good deal of the spray.  Someone offered to get me another glass and I said not to worry about it, that a little cleaner wasn’t going to hurt, and I finished my drink before they could react.   Knowing me, I probably made a joke about it strengthening my immune system.  Then shortly after, I ducked into the bathroom and ended the party.   Of course I don’t remember ANY of this.  Everything in this paragraph is pieced together from what I have learned from the other guests.

So in the end, it was good to learn that I was merely poisoned by toxic cleaners, rather than being an out-of-control drunk who vomits in the homes of new friends.  And I got an awesome story out of it. 

Like I said, an interesting couple of weeks.