First Day

Yesterday was the first day of Spring Quarter 2006, and it doesn't look like it's going to be quite as bad as I thought it was going to be. All of my classes are smaller than they were last quarter, with only a handful of people in each. Two of my classes are the second part of classes from last quarter, and are required for the CTCH degree. Makes me wonder - did a ton of people do that poorly in those classes? I could see it, because it was mostly theory. This quarter is mostly application.

At any rate, my first class is Network Concepts II, which looks like it's going to be a very abbreviated version of the Cisco CCNA classes, but without IOS. The text is "Network+ Guide to Networks," if that tells you anything. There's no homework in the class other than reading (I'm not even wasting money on the text) and a class project. I must have impressed someone last quarter by winging my class presentation, because I've already got a partner for the project even though it won't be assigned for a couple of weeks. It also looks like we're going to have a field trip to my server room. Should be interesting.

My second class is Programming & Design II, which basically covers ANSI C. We spent last quarter learning the language. This quarter looks a lot more fun. After all, I knew the language already. Plus, a different instructor took this portion of the class. Dr. Zhang is a pretty brilliant guy, but there's something lacking in his teaching style. He does better teaching the networking classes than the programming ones.

Finally, tonight I have a class called Visual Programming. Yup. Visual Basic. IMHO, anything with "Visual" in the title isn't a real programming language. Same goes for anything with "Basic" in the title. Visual Basic is the double-whammy. If it weren't for the instructor being the same as the ANSI C class - and the fact that it's a required course for CTCH - I would probably drop it.

Both of my programming classes are 5:10 - 7:45. One is Monday & Wednesday, while the other is Tuesday & Thursday. The good thing is, in the C class at least, that we don't have to attend lab sessions if we understand the material and do our homework at home. The instructor is either going to do half sessions with the second half being lab, or make Wednesdays lab nights. I hope the latter, because that puts me in class one less night a week. I hope she does the Visual class the same way. Guess I'll find out tonight.