College of Computing Mentors Program! February 3, 2010
Posted by lifealgo in College of Computing, Mentors Program.Tags: CoC
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I GOT IN!!! 
The College of Computing interviewed 40 applicants to participate in the second year of the Mentors Program and I was one of the lucky 30 that were selected!
The behavioral interview was definitely nerve-wracking, and good practice for future interviews! I almost didn’t apply because I thought I couldn’t, since I would technically “get hired” by the College of Computing for another job; it turns out I can be a mentor AND keep my work-study (yay!).
Our first meeting was yesterday. It was wonderful to meet the rest of the mentors and rearrange chairs and potato chip bags and avoid rogue sharpies and pens to make enough space to create posters about ourselves (with SHARPIES!). I’m absolutely ecstatic about working with them this next year and definitely looking forward to meeting my mentees in August 
Making Time for Time January 29, 2010
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I’m taking 17 credits, got involved in 3 more organizations this semester, and had only slept about 4 hours the night before, and still I found myself sitting in a Google event – for the second time that day.
The idea that some students (not just in CS) go to events for “dine and dashes” and freebie-hoarding sprees baffles me about as much as when I go to those same events and have the opportunity to converse with representatives from companies like Lockheed Martin and Yahoo! and Google.
To explain part of my amazement about “big companies” visiting Georgia Tech, I’ll put it in perspective: I know somebody who saw one of his favorite bands play live 4 times just last year. When I was young I was obsessed with the Backstreet Boys (oh, the shame!) throughout their most prolific era, yet not once did they visit Venezuela in the 4-5 years I listened to them.
Yahoo! and Google just don’t recruit in Venezuela. I understand it’s illogical to recruit people from every single country in our world, but it is definitely demotivating to live in a place without opportunities.
It can be assumed that if someone is “good enough” that they’ll eventually be “noticed” and obtain their dream job; naturally, this is bitterly unrealistic and doesn’t take into consideration outside factors. One example is an excellent fellow programmer and good friend of mine, Freddy P., who has been in a visa-requesting process for the past three years – hence, he is unable to move to another country where he could have the opportunity to be interviewed with Google.
I might eventually get used to their visits, but I won’t take them for granted.
… it ended? December 11, 2009
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Did the semester really already end?
I’m so nervous about my grades D:
At Tech it’s Hell, then Dead Week. November 24, 2009
Posted by lifealgo in Class Madness.Tags: Finals
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It’s Hell week!!
Even though it’s my second Fall semester, I don’t remember having had so many projects and tests clumped together last year. This year in the span of one week I had/have 3 tests and 2 final projects due. It doesn’t seem too bad of a situation, at least not unless I tell you that all 3 tests were on the same day and that I’ve been procrastinating on those projects! =X
Strangely enough, I’m actually looking forward to one of the projects: compressing a picture by converting it to a matrix and then doing the Singular Value Decomposition. The other project is just a simple Blackjack game I’ll try to implement with a queue, but I’m more nervous than excited about it.
Also, I’ve managed to always write on days that are multiples of four. I promise it’s not being done deliberately.
W@CC Movie Night! November 12, 2009
Posted by lifealgo in College of Computing, W@CC.Tags: CoC
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W@CC is having its first movie night of the semester!
UP! came out in DVD two days ago, so this Friday the gals from W@CC are going to set up a projector in the CoC Orgs Room to watch it. I believe it’s going to have a “No boys allowed!” rule to it, but that might just be to annoy certain men who also attend the weekly W@CC meetings, hehe.
The following week is going to be Game Night which should be fun as well! I still don’t know much about it, only that it’s planned.
The week after that W@CC is having an end-of-the-year dinner right before Thanksgiving. I can’t believe the semester is almost over; it seems crazy that there’s only about 3 more weeks left before I go into my 4th semester, but I digress.
This week’s meeting was pretty exciting because we started discussing CoCaesar’s Palace. From stories and pictures you can tell it’s a pretty big and fun event, “like Fall Festival times 5″ as one person described it. We also decided the theme: Film Noir! I got home so thrilled about it I googled fashion ideas, tried on a dress, brainstormed outfit ideas, and slightly annoyed my mother when I revealed that the event is still about 4 months away.
Next semester should be awesome. If not, I’ll make it be so.
New Semester = New Beginnings? November 8, 2009
Posted by lifealgo in Class Madness.Tags: CoC
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Time tickets to register for Spring semester classes opened last week, resulting in massive hysteria caused by Oscar lagging at dial-up rates.
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I’m neither displeased nor content with my classes for next semester, mostly because I hadn’t even thought about my schedule. It kinda snuck up on me. Even then, I don’t know a single second-year CS major who was able to get into Math3012/LCC3404 for Spring (as our curriculum suggests), so I wasn’t too bothered when I wasn’t able to get slots in those classes.
I was able to sign up for 17 credits:
- CS2110
- PHYS2211
- MATH1502
- HPS1040 (I don’t even know how)
- SOC1101
The answer is NO, I’m not planning to actually stick with all those classes. Anyone who sticks with 17+ credits is insane or out-of-state.
There are a lot of variables floating around right now which could change that schedule even more, the most altering of which is whether they approve my application to be a TA. For now, however, all I can do is keep on doing the Tech routine: work hard, study on repeat, and pray with crossed fingers.
Phantasma! November 4, 2009
Posted by lifealgo in College of Computing, Georgia Tech events, W@CC.Tags: CoC
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Last week Women @ the College of Computing (W@cc) hosted their annual Fall Festival and it was awesome!
I got there an hour late but I was amazed: there were over 100 students chattering around the Klaus atrium, dressed up and gobbling up the candy and other Halloween goods that W@CC had purchased for the event last week (which was another adventure in itself). A lot of students were dressed up: I spotted Link, a fairy, The Riddler, and a self-described “Generic Sci-Fi Girl”; there was a small crowd outside etching their designs on pumpkins or heating marshmellows; and it’s almost certain that at least one person left with a bruise from musical chairs.
Seeing so many fellow CoC students having fun and socializing was very refreshing for some reason – although it might have been because of the Halloween spirit or a side-effect of sugar! It seems that everyone else who attended enjoyed the event as well. It makes me look forward even more to other CoC events, specially W@CC-related ones.
Insight Into a Third-Semester Schedule October 27, 2009
Posted by lifealgo in Class Madness.Tags: Computer Science
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Like most CS students who haven’t picked their threads yet, I’m still following the suggested career path that was given to us sometime during FASET (wow, that seems like AGES ago… which makes sense, ’cause as Tech students we’ve been mostly awake since then).
Anyway, this is what my schedule looks like after two semesters at Tech:
- CS1050 – Constructing Proofs
- CS1332 – Data Structures and Algorithms
- MATH2605 – Calc III for CS
- INTA1200 – American Government
Although the grand total of 13 credits seems a bit cowardly to me, this semester is turning out to be what my superiors could professionally call ‘very freaking challenging’ thanks to CS1332.
To be fair, the subject matter and material we cover in the class itself is not what makes the course difficult: binary search trees, AVL trees, hashtables, linked lists, and (our most recent topic) graphs… what makes the course difficult is the simple fact that there is a disconnect between the lectures (theory) and our homework (application).
Such realization was helped by an idea CS professor Mark Guzdial recently discussed in blog entry in which he argued that the way in which introductory CS courses are taught at Tech are incorrect; I was mildly surprised by the objective self-criticism and the fact that someone within the CoC thinks so.
He mentions how studies have shown that learning from example leads to a better performance from students, which contradicts the theory-based teaching format of beginner CS courses at Tech. While it makes sense that we retain information and gain knowledge more efficiently from watching others solve problems first, it’s nice to see that there is at least some proof behind it.
Of course, if all introductory CS recitations/lectures were used to explain code and write methods students would never be able to come up with their own methods and classes from instructions, which contradict the very definition of (software) ‘engineer’.
Although some people are able to translate the ideas into code, it doesn’t help that homework is worth 1/4 of our final grade.
I’ll continue to battle through this weed-out class nonetheless.
Hello world! October 21, 2009
Posted by lifealgo in College of Computing.Tags: Computer Science
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I don’t even have to edit the title of this journal to make it relevant for this blog!
For those of you who know the significance behind “Hello, world!”, kudos. Those who don’t know, that’s what the link is for.
I highly recommend you go surf elsewhere if you don’t live anywhere near the ocean or if you’re not interested in computing, programming, Computer Science as a major, Georgia Tech, or all those things combined.
Except for the ‘living near the ocean’ part. It’s alright if you do. Or if don’t.
