Main Walkway Down to Green & Admin.It is hard to believe, but it is already my 5th week as a college sophomore. It is easy to see that the coursework here has become more challenging, but I love how quickly I am learning topics that are completely new to me. I have a physics course which has trained me to look at math problems in a more effective way.
I used to stare blankly at word problems in math because I did a crappy job with collecting information used to solve the problems. With physics though the problems are related to the real world. They are so easy to visualize that they have trained me to look at word problems in a different way. I can picture a soccer ball being launched at 12.3 m/s at an angle of 50° off of a cliff 20m in height. I can use common sense to assume that the acceleration of gravity, 9.8m/s², is a factor with how quickly the ball will accelerate during free-fall.
I am also enjoying my C Programming class. Before this course I had absolutely no experience with the Unix operation system, but now I use it once a week at the very least. We write, compile, debug, and copy our programs and files directly from the Unix server. It is pretty cool. The operating system is simple, it is only text-based, but it definitely is quite powerful. Pretty much every operating system out there is based in some way or another on Unix.
My classes are definitely going well so far. I definitely am given a bunch of work, it can seem like too much occasionally, but I am clearly getting what my family and I are paying for. The education here at Vermont Tech works quite well. With what I have already learned here I almost wish I could go back in time with what I now know and do highschool all over again. I guarantee I would easily be able to graduate with a 4.0 GPA, or at least something close to that.
I had an exam in Newton Mechanics (Physics) last Wednesday. I received a grade somewhere in the 80s range on that exam. I also had a Technical Math exam last Friday, but I don't find out how well I did on that until tomorrow's math class. I am hoping that my grade turns out even better than I think it will, but it is a math course, so it is hard to say. Chances are I will find that I didn't do as well as I thought I did based on the fact that exams are usually quite picky. You have to write everything in a special way, and if you break form at all then you get points docked off. You will still get points docked regardless of whether or not you got the correct answer. It gets frustrating sometimes, but I understand that most of the majors here are for people entering fields where they simply won't be allowed to make mistakes. I am in the Computer Engineering Major. It is hard to say, due to all the things my major covers, what I will be doing after graduation. If I make a single mistake with my work in the future then it is completely possible that a piece of equipment could be completely ruined, a person could be placed in harms way, or my employer could lose thousands of dollars due to the time needed to fix one of my simple mistakes. If you are an engineer... if you are a doctor... you CANNOT make mistakes. :P
I decided to go on a little bit of a rant for this post. I know that originally I said that I would try to post twice last week, but failed at doing even a single post. It was due to my exams, but it paid off. Anyway, on Wednesday I will have a guest on campus. I have an old friend of mine staying on campus tomorrow night so that he can see what my college courses are like on Wednesday. My schedule on Wednesday includes: Newton Mechanics, C Programming, Technical Math, and History of Rock & Roll. It should be good. :P
P.S: I forgot to mention that I am in "College Mode" now. It is a term I am using to describe the fact that I am just now getting back into my true college work habits. Getting work out of the way early, taking better notes in my classes, and even managing my time well enough to still hang out with my friends to do things like bowling ever Thursday night. :D
I used to stare blankly at word problems in math because I did a crappy job with collecting information used to solve the problems. With physics though the problems are related to the real world. They are so easy to visualize that they have trained me to look at word problems in a different way. I can picture a soccer ball being launched at 12.3 m/s at an angle of 50° off of a cliff 20m in height. I can use common sense to assume that the acceleration of gravity, 9.8m/s², is a factor with how quickly the ball will accelerate during free-fall.
I am also enjoying my C Programming class. Before this course I had absolutely no experience with the Unix operation system, but now I use it once a week at the very least. We write, compile, debug, and copy our programs and files directly from the Unix server. It is pretty cool. The operating system is simple, it is only text-based, but it definitely is quite powerful. Pretty much every operating system out there is based in some way or another on Unix.
My classes are definitely going well so far. I definitely am given a bunch of work, it can seem like too much occasionally, but I am clearly getting what my family and I are paying for. The education here at Vermont Tech works quite well. With what I have already learned here I almost wish I could go back in time with what I now know and do highschool all over again. I guarantee I would easily be able to graduate with a 4.0 GPA, or at least something close to that.
I had an exam in Newton Mechanics (Physics) last Wednesday. I received a grade somewhere in the 80s range on that exam. I also had a Technical Math exam last Friday, but I don't find out how well I did on that until tomorrow's math class. I am hoping that my grade turns out even better than I think it will, but it is a math course, so it is hard to say. Chances are I will find that I didn't do as well as I thought I did based on the fact that exams are usually quite picky. You have to write everything in a special way, and if you break form at all then you get points docked off. You will still get points docked regardless of whether or not you got the correct answer. It gets frustrating sometimes, but I understand that most of the majors here are for people entering fields where they simply won't be allowed to make mistakes. I am in the Computer Engineering Major. It is hard to say, due to all the things my major covers, what I will be doing after graduation. If I make a single mistake with my work in the future then it is completely possible that a piece of equipment could be completely ruined, a person could be placed in harms way, or my employer could lose thousands of dollars due to the time needed to fix one of my simple mistakes. If you are an engineer... if you are a doctor... you CANNOT make mistakes. :P
I decided to go on a little bit of a rant for this post. I know that originally I said that I would try to post twice last week, but failed at doing even a single post. It was due to my exams, but it paid off. Anyway, on Wednesday I will have a guest on campus. I have an old friend of mine staying on campus tomorrow night so that he can see what my college courses are like on Wednesday. My schedule on Wednesday includes: Newton Mechanics, C Programming, Technical Math, and History of Rock & Roll. It should be good. :P
P.S: I forgot to mention that I am in "College Mode" now. It is a term I am using to describe the fact that I am just now getting back into my true college work habits. Getting work out of the way early, taking better notes in my classes, and even managing my time well enough to still hang out with my friends to do things like bowling ever Thursday night. :D
P.P.S: I chose the picture above because the walkway on campus is actually being completely replaced this year. It is looking pretty good, but the walkway in this picture is one of the last pictures taken of the original walkway. I will try to get a similar picture at some point during the week to show how it has changed.
1 comment:
The information here is great. I will invite my friends here.
Thanks
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