The endgame
Sat Mar 20, 2010 22:42 (UTC -5)It’s March, and that means it’s time to start picking classes for next fall. People who plan to take classes over the summer also pick them during this time. This year, I am one of those people.
If I’m going to graduate next spring as planned, I’ll have to take summer classes to catch up. That means I won’t be able to do America with my friends, but there are few other downsides. I would be home for the rest of the summer. That’s how I spent the summer of 2008. It was kind of boring.
The College of Engineering requires its students to meet with an advisor before registering for classes. So, on Thursday, I made the most important advising visit of my college career: the one in which all of my remaining questions would be answered. I had come with a long list of questions about the classes I would have to take in order to graduate, many of which are high-level electives. The advisor answered them with ease, and now I have a list of summer and fall classes to sign up for, as well as an idea of what my spring schedule will be like.
I had been hoping to take an elective called Programming Using C over the summer, but the advisor said it wouldn’t count toward my degree because I had taken too many programming language classes previously (two of them, both Java classes). It’s kind of a shame because I’d really like to learn what is probably the most widely used and influential programming language ever, especially since another class I’ll be taking over the summer sort of requires it. I guess I’ll just have to try to do it myself.
I’d also really like to take an elective called Unix System Administration, but they haven’t offered it recently and aren’t doing so in the foreseeable future. This sucks because I think I’ve finally decided What I Want To Be When I Grow Up™: a Unix system administrator.
For a long time, I wanted to be a programmer, but I wasn’t exactly raking in the necessary experience. I’ve never done any real programming, like in a big “open source” project. The thought overwhelms me; there’s so much I don’t know that it’s hard to get started. I have a class now where we’re starting to develop a program collaboratively, but I can hardly get interested in it since I have so little experience with anything (and because it’s a program I’ll never use in real life). It seems more like a nightmare than a fun challenge. My fun challenges are dinky little scripts I hammer out from time to time. I can’t get paid to write those.
There are also ideological roadblocks. I believe in the ideals of free software, which state that people are essentially free to do whatever they wish with their software. This idea isn’t extremely popular in the corporate world, and I doubt I could get paid to write such software or even maintain it (one of my professors says that everyone who starts out in the software business is tasked not with writing new programs but instead with being a “software archaeologist”).
Meanwhile, my webmaster job has opened me up to the world of system administration. I’m in charge of web sites, which reside on servers, which need care and feeding. Now, it’s not actually my job to make sure that the servers are secure and up to date, but I don’t think I’d mind doing it. The thought of being in charge of a network of computers at some organization—a virtual catcher in the rye, if you will—kind of fascinates me. The servers at work run FreeBSD, which is basically similar to Ubuntu, the OS I use on my own computer, so I know my way around. Those and many other Unix-like operating systems are free-as-in-freedom software, and they’re widely used on web servers everywhere.
Interestingly, it was the summer of 2008 when I wrote, “I’ve decided that working on software would be pretty cool…. I don’t want to be a sysadmin.” People change.
I think that’s enough for now. The point is that I’m planning to bring my college studies to an end and that I’m thinking about what I want to do after that. It feels good to have some sort of idea.
I haven’t tried these out, but they may be worthwhile: tips for Reducing Junk Mail.
Here are some interesting maps made out of NASA’s topographic data: Reading the World in Braille. As a topographic anomaly, the garbage dump near my house gets a shout-out.
Tons of vintage ads arranged by category and decade: Vintage Ad Browser. (Via Lifehacker)
Filed under Computers, Musings and Observations, School, Science, Stuff
5 comments
#1 by Daniel: Sun Mar 21, 2010 02:19 (UTC -5)
You need to learn C. Period. My poor friends and I have a highly illegal method of saving money on textbooks that includes someone’s Canon dslr and tripod, and I’m taking a C class this semester.
Hit me up if you’d like a copy, or if you’d just like to know the name of the book (great book), if you’d like to acquire a less dubious copy.
C is a really fun language, I know Java very well, like yourself, and C is refreshing.
In fact, if you can, take the course anyway, just for the experience. As a Unix sysadmin, C would be much more useful than Java.
#2 by Kirsten: Sun Mar 21, 2010 12:02 (UTC -5)
My recommendation is the same as Daniel’s – take the C class anyway. It’s something that interests you and will obviously be useful in your post-college career, so the fact that it won’t count towards your degree is irrelevant. It will count towards everything else.
#3 by Jordon Kalilich: Sun Mar 21, 2010 12:15 (UTC -5)
I’d have to pay $437.28 out of pocket to enroll in the class, and I’m not sure if I’d be allowed to sit in on it. In that case, I’d prefer to learn the language on my own time.
#4 by Kirsten: Sun Mar 21, 2010 15:53 (UTC -5)
Well the cost makes sense – you could go the solo route, then take the course when you’re in a better financial position if you still feel like you’d get something out of it.
#5 by Daniel: Tue Mar 23, 2010 02:24 (UTC -5)
If you don’t have a book lined up already, I recommend “C Programming: A Modern Approach” by King. Work through as much of it as you can, you’ll want to list C on your resume.