Dog Days of Summer

Once again, I've neglected posting for a while, but I've certainly been busy. The end of the spring semester was hectic as usual, but I feel pretty good about my performance. I was able to scrape decent grades in 4 classes, but unfortunately I couldn't keep up in my probability class and failed it. That seems to be the norm when I take math classes; so far, I've had to take every college math class twice in order to pass. It's not great, but I'll manage. In fact, that probability class is not required for my Computer Science major, only the Applied Math minor I'm going to try and scrape out.

After the end of the spring semester, I took some time to visit with family and friends. I wasn't able to find an internship immediately, but that's not such a bad thing. I think I should try to enjoy what should be my last summer before I enter the workforce full time.

After a couple weeks of relaxing, I started back at school for summer classes. I initially started with two classes; Matrix Methods and Applications, and Computer Graphics. Matrix methods is required for my major, and computer graphics was going to be just for fun. After a couple of days, I decided to drop computer graphics to focus on the math class. I realize that I normally have trouble with math classes, so it makes sense to spend more energy concentrating on that class.

The other reason I dropped the computer graphics class is that I wasn't impressed by the teacher's style. He hates Java and loves global variables. Since I just finished Software Engineering Methods and Tools, I've just learned more modern techniques, and the code from his examples had several bad "smells." Basically, I think his coding style and language preferences haven't changed in 15 years. I anticipated being forced to decide between learning bad habits to please the teacher, or doing it the way I think is right and risking being marked off, and I really didn't want to make that choice.

For the Army, I took a week-long trip a few weeks ago for a computer security class. The goal was to become CompTIA Security+ certified, and I passed with flying colors! That certification should help me doing my network administration job for the Army.