This semester I was only enrolled in a total of 11 credits worth of classes (Embedded Systems – 4, Discrete Structures – 4, Software Engineering – 3). Since my status at the university is a non-degree graduate student, full time is set to 6 credit hours, so I was a “full time” student. But technicaly, since I was taking undergraduate courses, I was taking what normally would classify me as a “part time” undergraduate student. This was the first semester in which I had taken anything less than what my normal course load from before of 14-18 credits. Yet, despite only taking 11 credits, the classes kept me busy and on my toes. Academics still took about 30-50 hours per week (yes, I do time logs), and that I still came across those seemingly inevitable nights of studying, working on homework, labs, projects, etc.

Since my focus was strictly to satisfy my course prerequisites for the MS Computer Science program, I wasn’t involved on any on-campus clubs this semester. Previously during my undergraduate years I was deeply involved in organizations such as student government, publications, and clubs. But disconnecting myself from that to focus on academia certainly freed up more time towards doing well in my courses.

I actually ended up enjoying all of my classes, where my favorite one was Software Engineering. I particularly have this keen interest towards software requirements and analysis over design. It’s not so much that I don’t like designing products because I do — I woudn’t be an engineer if I didn’t. Just, I feel that it’s in my nature that I focus a lot on “future-proofing”, because one thing that I don’t like is having to change a design halfway (or more) through because requirements weren’t clarified. Also, I’m interested in looking into propective future software life-cycle models. Considering the history of software engineering, it’s pretty interesting at looking how life-cycle models have evolved. And as software companies are working in what seems to be a very popular object-oriented life cycle model, it’d be some food for thought as to what sort of model companies would be working on 10-15 years in the future.

Embedded Systems introduced me to lower-level programming, particularly Assembly language. I actually found myself not hating the language as it seems most people around me seem to, and I enjoyed the labs. I bought the microprocessor board the lab uses (Dragon12-Plus) as my justification to save gas money since on a typical morning it’d take me 45 – 60 minutes to get to campus. To me, the cost of the board (~$100) and the documentation ($0) was a much better expense than the text, and I’m happy that I do have a microprocessor board on me for future projects that I want to take up myself.

Discrete Structures was a class that seemed as if it took basic principles of logic and turned it over its head. I found the homework, quizzes, and exams to be not so much math problems but as puzzles instead. Boolean logic, set theory, proofs, and graph theory was the most interesting to me, but I never seemed to get combinatorics right. Even despite studying and practicing countless combinatorics problems, I was always bound to get something wrong! Even though the class is already done a part of me still wants to continue studying the topic by doing a problem a day or something around that sort. I do have a lot of respect for the instructor for this class since I perceive it as a class that would be difficult to teach without having the material get too dry for the students. Her heart is devoted to the topic, as it was also the area that she specialized for her Ph.D, and I wish I had as much passion in logic, algorithms, and the sort as her.

Taking just three classes with no other outside obligations was the perfect number. It certainly deemed itself as such come the time of final exams. Both Embedded Systems and Discrete Structures’ finals were both comprehensive. In the past, comprehensive final exams were the worst. There always seemed to be so much material to cover, and the stark realization that there was material that needed to be covered that was uncovered. However, studying for both of the classes wasn’t so painstaking as I initially thought. Reviewing the previous two exams for the classes and going through notes and homework for the later end of the classes were enough, since I had spent so much more time on preparing for the first two exams. Also, somehow by taking just three classes made it feel like there wasn’t enough material that was covered, and the structure of topics for my classes just seemed to make sense.

That all said, I did remarkably well in all of my classes, with multiple instances where I’ve scored well above the curve. However, I didn’t do quite as well as I had wanted because I had been working for a 4.0, and fatal screw ups in the combinatorics section of Exam 2 of Discrete Structures I feel inevitably will bring me to a B. So, I am expecting as my grades this semester as an A in Software Engineering and Embedded Systems, and a B in Discrete Structures bringing my semester GPA to a 3.64.

But I can’t complain. It was a good semester.

I am thankful that school is going, more or less, well. So far I am doing good in all of my classes. My first round of midterms went exceeding well where I scored very, very high above the class average. However, my second round of midterms have been a bit of a setback for me scoring around the average. I may have become more complacent, or perhaps it was just an incredibly busy few weeks leading up to my “hell week”, but it’s okay. I still retain A’s in my classes and I hope to keep them as I come out of the semester.

There is, however, the unfortunate news that the graduate committee at KU hasn’t formally accepted me into their MS Computer Science program yet and insists to keep me as still a “non-degree” graduate student. The initial plan was for me to take course prerequisites (which I am doing now) and with a few prereqs out of the way, change my status from “non-degree” to “degree seeking” graduate. Honestly, I’m a bit surprised that I wasn’t transferred even as a “provisional” graduate student since my background is still within an engineering discipline (aerospace) versus something completely different, such as a humanities.

In either event, the “non-degree” status puts me at a setback with even continuing taking prerequisite courses to transfer into the MSCS program financially. A huge majority of financial aid is distributed under the condition that the student is “degree seeking”, and without those magic words under my status (despite the fact that I am seeking a degree) restricts my student financial aid to a null.

However, I had put in a few applications to other schools and their Masters program and fortunately I did get admitted to a Masters program in a Electrical/Computer Engineering and another one in Software Engineering at another University. (Not going to disclose the name yet.)

I’m in the works of handling a few financial kinks to determine whether it would be financially feasible to transfer to that University as soon as the Spring semester (January 2010). If it isn’t possible, I was given the option to defer my admission to Fall 2010, which then gives me enough time to find a job to take care of a few upfront costs.

That being said, I’m back on the job hunt. Despite the economy picking up, unemployment is still in record highs and I have that betting against me. But, I’m not giving up. I’ve sent a number of job applications out the past month and will be continuing to do so until something fruitful comes up. I’m also certain that at some point, I will find a good job where I can use my income to help me pay for my graduate school.

It’s hard for me to find anything to be thankful about being on the job hunt; being unemployed and looking for a job has been such a mind numbing, stomach wrenching experience. But, I am thankful that this time I am allowing myself to extend my opportunity to branch out elsewhere.

- Marianne Williamson, from A Return to Love

Even though I am, by technicality, a “graduate student”, I am still taking undergraduate classes in computer science since I’m in the transitory period between becoming an aerospace engineer to a computer scientist. One of the courses that I’m taking is a software engineering course that seems to be mostly comprised of juniors and seniors, and my professor ties in a lot of real-world work experience in making the material of software engineering come alive. Without a doubt, this class is by far my favorite class since I like a systematic, disciplined approaches to design and also because for each topic, I could relate with my own work experience, even though it may not have been directly related to software.

My professor talks a lot about different roles and functions people have (requirements analysis, programmers, designers, SQA, etc) and also reminds us to open our mind to what sort of role we, the students, see ourselves in. Whenever I think about, it ends up turning into a higher level thought of, “What do I want with a Master’s degree in Computer Science?”

I do know that I want to complement my Bachelor’s in Aerospace Engineering with this Master’s. From my time working, it’s apparent of the role that computer science plays into engineering (albeit aerospace or not) and I’ve adapted the attitude that to become a good engineer that deals with systems hardware, it would be good to also be able to understand that system’s software. And of course, there are the other factors too such as the fact that the brink of new technologies deals with computers and that this line of study is applicable to a seemingly unlimited number of industries.

Just, will I ever end up actually working on aerospace and computer science applications?

Will I end up eventually forgoing my aerospace engineering degree and end up sticking to software, or vice versa?

I know I have a lot of time to figure out where my specific interests are in computer science. I suppose my fear with taking up two (or more) disciplines is that I would end up becoming a jack-of-all-trades, master of nothing. And that would be kind of amusing and contradictory since I am pursuing a Master’s degree.

I’m aware that making the computer game is a method for us to learn the principles of Software Engineering, but nonetheless I find the project to be exciting. Quite some time ago (Jan 09),  during a layover for a flight, I made an outline of goals for myself to do. It wasn’t a set of goals that actually hit the ground running since I always seemed to find myself tired when I was coming home from work then, though I did accomplish a few things here and there of what I listed out.

My software engineering project is under the constraints of time, I’m fully aware that one semester of a mere four months is not enough time to create the-most-super-awesomely-advanced-indie-student-game-ever. But, it’s certainly enough time to learn the principles of what I’ve been wanting to learn — game development, Python and more importantly, software engineering — altogether.

This will be a good semester.

I’d like to start getting into the habit of recording on a more consistent basis and on top of that, actually “accepting” a recording to myself even if I end up making an error in the piece. The goal is that I would at least have some music that I make to actually listen to and so that I can simply face the fact that like engineering, there is really no “final product” and that there always is room for improvement.

Also, I’ve been thinking about getting a fake book again. Back in my high school days I had used one, but since I’ve moved out of the nest I haven’t gotten my hands on a fake book recently. I’ve been thinking that it could give me the good practice on developing improvisation on the piano, while also just exposing me to more chords and melodies of popular songs so that if someone asked me to play something, I would have a slightly more decent chance in knowing it.

I guess I’m being a bit influenced by dueling pianists. It just simply amazes me on the breadth of songs that they know, how they can work a crowd and how they can improvise songs and lyrics if needed be.

In any case, I’ll start posting up music recordings a bit more frequently now. They won’t be perfect, but they’ll be a continuing work in progress.

Left and right, I was told that life becomes so much better once you start working; that it’d be simply work your shift and come home with nothing to worry about.

A couple months into when I entered the workforce, my attitude towards school changed. I actually missed it. August and January would fly by and it seemed empty without paying the exorbitant amount for textbooks and preparing for a nonexistent school year.

The shift in mindset
In the working world, the only education that you have for you is the education that only life could give you. (Otherwise known as experience.) When you’re out there, it’s already assumed that you’ve mastered the tools that you need to know. And as for the notion of “once you come home from work you have nothing to worry about”, it’s not true! Several times after I came home from work I would find myself complaining about my workday, whether it be to my family, cat or boyfriend!

In school, your job as a student is simple and straightforward — learn. School is very much a luxury where you can learn practically anything you want.  If you want to learn about classical mechanics, there’s a class on that. Advanced modulation and coding? There’s a class on that. Even though there are a lot of jokes about underwater basket weaving, there’s a class on that. Or at least, there was a class on that.

There are so many resources available to you to at school (i.e., the library, professors, lab equipment, classmates, etc) that there’s really no reason to outright fail, unless you just lack the motivation. School  You don’t have to worry about furloughs or layoffs … in the end, you have nothing to worry about except yourself.

My new job – being a student
I’m glad that I’m back at school. Even though the classification of “student” can resonate to me as “n00b”, I’m happy that I have to opportunity to expand my skill set in computer science from aerospace engineering. Though in a way, being in the workforce has corrupted my mindset, where …

• “Classes/Lab” = 1 hour 15 minute meetings to discuss [subject] with [professor]
• “Homework” = personal project/task to prep for meeting
• “Tests” = gate review; product testing

My same goal from being an employee also carries over to being a student. That is, be a master of the skills needed to complete my tasks, complete tasks in a timely manner, and always extend a hand to people who need help.

Put simply, “Be absolutely, totally awesome.”

“[Company Name] is coming to campus soon but thank God I don’t need to worry about it! If your dad wasn’t the hiring manager, I wouldn’t have gotten that internship for next summer!”

I just happen to know [Company Name], and that [Company Name] doesn’t even have job postings for available for summer 2010 internships. This brings me to my little … rant …, assuming that what these students are saying is true.

I have to admit, I get agitated by people who have “connections” with companies. I always thought it was an unfair advantage, and hate having to resort to using “connections” myself. But all to often now, I’m hearing more and more that a person with direct connection to a company, whether it be by friend, family, co-worker, or any other odd combination of the three, has a better chance of getting hired over a more well-qualified applicant.

You can have the most amazing background, education, and experience yet you could be virtually unnoticed. I had a friend in college who was a had a CGPA of a 3.9 in our Aerospace Engineering curriculum. A 3.9, where the graduating class average CGPA was a 2.8! He could good oral and verbal communication (worked at the school’s Writing Center and did MUN), was an RA, was a club president, and had previous working experience with an internship. And yet, for nine months that consistent of fall and spring semester, left and right our classmates were finding jobs (including the most UN-qualified druggies landing jobs at big name companies) and he had nearly faced graduation without a job until he got one at the last moment with a small contractor.

I understand that Human Resources folks have to deal with hundreds of resumes a day, and I understand that by networking you could have a better chance of having your application at the hiring manager’s desk. Because of this, job searching seems to have manifested into this game where on the applicant-side, where

1. You need to network
2. You need to network
3. You need to network
4. You need to network
5. You need to be good at what you do

I say this because from me looking at the outset, I see people who have strong networks or connections getting hired into a company. At the same time, I see (and have worked with) people who absolutely no nothing about their job duties. When I ask myself, “How on Earth did this person get hired?” it usually leads to me thinking, “Oh, wait.”

Obviously, there is a problem with the process. I don’t have a solution, yet I feel that there could be a more efficient way to find quality candidates versus what it seems to be like “let’s do a job posting and let applications come in, but let’s focus our attention on people who have connections”.

These undergraduate students talking about their summer internship next year is a good example of this. One person’s dad works at [Company Name] and even before the hiring process starts, he takes in his child and child’s friends’ resume and hires them without considering potential applicants whose applications still have yet to come in once the jobs are posted.

Equal Opportunity Employer? I don’t think so.