The Major

Category: Education

  • Spring Break!

    A slight break. I still have to work, 9-5, and I still have plenty of schoolwork to do. Nonetheless, it is a slight break from the constant grind, the constant thinking. More later, maybe. As for tomorrow night? World of drum n bass. ‘Nuff said. (Well, ’nuff for me, and if it’s not ’nuff for you, then you don’t appreciate dnb like I do, which is probable.)

  • Cosimo de’ Medici

    Cosimo de’ Medici sums up the attitudes of those in credit card debt:

    …it became clear that spending money gives me greater pleasure than earning it

    Of course, he didn’t have to be in debt to spend money.

  • SFSU, Finally

    As some of you know, I am taking a couple of classes at City College of San Francisco this semester. A couple of snoozers – Critical Thinking and a Speech class.

    But because I am taking those classes, I am now able to attend SFSU next semester. Woo! I have been looking forward to taking some History classes for a while. Also, I am guessing the campus will be a bit nicer, because the CCSF campus is kind of old and falling apart (especially the bathrooms).

    Some downsides: It is further away. The night classes start at 7pm, which means I will get home no earlier than 11pm two or three nights per week. And it is more expensive. Time to start saving…

  • Yay! The Library is Closing!

    Today I have decided to go to the Western Addition library so that I can go to Lily’s BBQ afterwards. By the way, the Zagat guide gave Brother in Law’s a 23 (out of 30) on food, and a FOUR on decor. Seriously. A four.

    Anyway, so of course I had to look up the address and hours for this library branch. And now I find out that this library is closing for renovation very soon. In fact, they’re having a freakin’ party (pdf) to celebrate the closing. This seems a little messed up. The branch will reopen in the spring of 2008.

    I am not saying that it doesn’t need renovating, but it seems a little strange to celebrate the fact that a community educational resource will be unavailable for about a year and a half.

    At least I will get to see it before it closes, and I might even make it out to the little party just to see the absurdity of it all.

  • Still Haven’t Heard From SFSU

    I applied to San Francisco State University over a month ago. I heard from them once, saying they needed a residency form and my transcript from UMBC. Well, I had already requested a transcript mailing from UMBC, but I requested another, double-checking that it was being sent to the correct address. And of course I sent in the residency application. I haven’t heard from them since.

    I am thinking if I don’t get in…maybe I should concentrate on career certifications instead. Of course, I am still going for my CCNA (Cisco Certified Network Associate), but I am pretty close to getting it. So a CCNA is kind of like an associate’s degree in networking, then I could go for a CCNP (Cisco Certified Network Professional), which is kind of like a bachelor’s of networking. And if I am still up for it…I could go for a CCIE (Cisco Certified Internetworking Engineer, I believe). That is like a doctorate of networking.

    Now, I am not just making the above comparisons for the sake of analogy. Those certifications really are comparible in several ways to the degrees I have associated them with. In terms of the amount of work required, they are maybe a little less work required, but not all that much. And in terms of the expected salaries for those who hold the certifications, they seem to be a bit higher than their comparable degrees.

    Anyway, it would be a damn shame if I didn’t get in to SFSU. But at least I have a backup plan.

  • A rough idea: Open Education

    Something I have noticed about myself has given me an idea about an alternate form of education. What if you were given a large amount of resources such as access to books, classes, professors, and TAs and you were judged on your worthiness for a degree at a point of your and your adviser’s determining? So basically, you would decide what to study at all times. You could go to a lecture for two weeks, get what you want from it, and put what you have learned towards something else. You could do independent research and learning, and possibly go to professors and TAs to help you understand something or to guide you in the right direction.

    I find that I learn best when I find something that sounds interesting and just see where it takes me. A lot of times I will find myself holding back on learning something that I want to learn because I know I have “classwork” to do. And the classwork is not particularly interesting so a one-hour assignment might take me four hours since I am constantly procrastinating. I am sure this idea has a lot of flaws, but I am just throwing it out there.