Current Affairs
I think I am going to Pittsburgh from November 9th to November 13th.
This Thursday through Sunday trip means I must complete any currently running projects and do some pre-emptive work. This entails finishing my current project at Progress, prepping for an exam at school, Scheme, reading, preparing a small research paper on professional ethics comparing and contrasting the ACM and Civil Engineering and coding an XP Spike. Of all of these, the XP Spike concerns me the most. I am quite certain I can create an assignment-tailored solution, however the solution needs to be generic and modular. I think for now I will just create a small program and then do a little quality assurance engineering around it. This would include running several module tests and then a unit test on the entire thing. Once all this work is completed I should be good to travel.
Traveling means making sure I make the airport on time. I leave campus at 11am and my flight departs Manchester, NH at 1:20pm. It arrives in Pittsburgh, after connecting in Philidelphia, at 5:20pm. Sunday the flight departs at 5:45pm and goes to MHT via LaGuardia. I am unsure the final arrival time. I believe it to be between 10 and 11pm, leaning toward the latter.
Hopefully the stay will be enjoyable. I have never met my hosts. I wish to extend to them the utmost possible courtesy. I have had some mixed impressions online from good to..."just plain freaky." It is confusing trying to track 3 or more people through 1 AIM window. However, it must be taken all in stride. I look forward to a vacation after forgoing one all summer. I have, what I think, is a good reason for going. I hope that proves to be true.
In other news, I declared my intent to graduate.
Due to my lack of an academic advisor, and the schools unwillingness to give me one, despite asking for 3 years, I am very far behind as far as requirements go. The classes I have taken, and planned to take, don't satisfy certain credit quality requirements. I have most of my core classes down, but I need to take several electives and humanities courses. I did manage to find all this out in a good way though.
In lieu of an permanent advisor, I got audited and advised by the undergraduate coordinator. He has his quirks, but he is a good guy and very knowledgable. He processed my forms and my DIG form (Declaration of Intent to Graduate), as well as give me a favorable audit. Having been an Electrical Engineering major for 1 year, I had several 2 credit and 1 credit courses ranging from Engineering lectures and seminars to some rather obscure labs and recitations. The undergrad. coordinator allowed me to take this mass of random credits and apply them as a 3 cr. general elective. Although I combined something like 5-7 credits and gleaned only 3, 3 is still better than 0, and it leaves me with an easier load come spring and next summer.
I believe I can graduate in August of 2006. This will be 5 years since I started, but I believe having switched majors once will give me a better perspective in the workplace. Diversity in one's education can never be a bad thing. DesCartes once said that it is the generality of our intelligence and how we apply it that sets us apart.
This Thursday through Sunday trip means I must complete any currently running projects and do some pre-emptive work. This entails finishing my current project at Progress, prepping for an exam at school, Scheme, reading, preparing a small research paper on professional ethics comparing and contrasting the ACM and Civil Engineering and coding an XP Spike. Of all of these, the XP Spike concerns me the most. I am quite certain I can create an assignment-tailored solution, however the solution needs to be generic and modular. I think for now I will just create a small program and then do a little quality assurance engineering around it. This would include running several module tests and then a unit test on the entire thing. Once all this work is completed I should be good to travel.
Traveling means making sure I make the airport on time. I leave campus at 11am and my flight departs Manchester, NH at 1:20pm. It arrives in Pittsburgh, after connecting in Philidelphia, at 5:20pm. Sunday the flight departs at 5:45pm and goes to MHT via LaGuardia. I am unsure the final arrival time. I believe it to be between 10 and 11pm, leaning toward the latter.
Hopefully the stay will be enjoyable. I have never met my hosts. I wish to extend to them the utmost possible courtesy. I have had some mixed impressions online from good to..."just plain freaky." It is confusing trying to track 3 or more people through 1 AIM window. However, it must be taken all in stride. I look forward to a vacation after forgoing one all summer. I have, what I think, is a good reason for going. I hope that proves to be true.
In other news, I declared my intent to graduate.
Due to my lack of an academic advisor, and the schools unwillingness to give me one, despite asking for 3 years, I am very far behind as far as requirements go. The classes I have taken, and planned to take, don't satisfy certain credit quality requirements. I have most of my core classes down, but I need to take several electives and humanities courses. I did manage to find all this out in a good way though.
In lieu of an permanent advisor, I got audited and advised by the undergraduate coordinator. He has his quirks, but he is a good guy and very knowledgable. He processed my forms and my DIG form (Declaration of Intent to Graduate), as well as give me a favorable audit. Having been an Electrical Engineering major for 1 year, I had several 2 credit and 1 credit courses ranging from Engineering lectures and seminars to some rather obscure labs and recitations. The undergrad. coordinator allowed me to take this mass of random credits and apply them as a 3 cr. general elective. Although I combined something like 5-7 credits and gleaned only 3, 3 is still better than 0, and it leaves me with an easier load come spring and next summer.
I believe I can graduate in August of 2006. This will be 5 years since I started, but I believe having switched majors once will give me a better perspective in the workplace. Diversity in one's education can never be a bad thing. DesCartes once said that it is the generality of our intelligence and how we apply it that sets us apart.