Academic Fantasizing

[bethlakshmi]

Having finished the homework for this week... I'm taking a moment to fantasize about having my life back. I have one more semester after this (the fall), and some paperwork and that's it. So.. one more course. I'm looking at the offerings and seeing:

- LAN/WAN networking - in Waltham - probably not challenging - I've taken this course undergrad, and my job has kept me pretty up to speed on this stuff.

- operating systems - in Westboro - challenging but useful - operating systems are the big black hole for me. I don't know what's in there. I do applications, I do networks. I seem to have a empty space where the knowledge of the in-between stuff would be. Apparently the O.S. is run by magic fairies.

Both qualify for the last core course credit I need. No other courses offered at Worchester Campus are new and different from these, so they are not worth looking at. Nothing else in Waltham/Westboro gives me the core course qualification I need. Most of the offerings I've already taken.

The tradeoffs:
- the first course is easy and close - Waltham is 10 minutes from work, and has lots of great places to grab dinner before/after.
- the second course is more useful, and less boring - but Westboro is an hour from work, and an hour home, and has only 1 or two good restaraunts.

What's a geek girl to do?

Comments

[chio-chan.livejournal.com]

so u are also a technical specialist keen on indian dance and culture:)
me too!

and i like this film too:)

[lakshmi-amman.livejournal.com]

Yep. Being a computer geek supports my dangerous art habit. :)

Kama Sutra is both beautiful, and has fabulous music. :) It's a favorite.

Waltham

[dervishspin.livejournal.com]

You have been remarkably hard on yourself. Take a break and take the easy course. You can always go back afterwards and take the course you are interested in.

Besides... less gas used = good.

And if you are in Waltham, interesting people like me can have dinner with you.

[suba-al-hadid.livejournal.com]

The more interesting course, of course. Despite the drawbacks, you'll be glad you took it. New and interesting stuff is worth your time.

That's my two cents anyway.

[dreda.livejournal.com]

This is why I had some brutal spots in grad school - take the cool and nifty course. I found that when I took easy courses I spent the whole term berating myself for dropping the money on them, not to mention being really bored.

[lakshmi-amman.livejournal.com]

One thing I totally forgot:

- The nearby/easy course is on Thursdays
- The farther/challenging course is on Tuesdays

Thursdays is the carved-in-stone night my Middle Eastern dance troupe has class.

Tuesday was a defacto private dance class night with my Indian dance teacher, but as the lesson is private, it's flexible.

The courses are 14 weeks long - I will loose the night from Sept., to mid-Dec.

No money wasted - Papa General Dynamics pays for my schooling. Tuition = $2690/course. Sucking $8,000-$11,000 a year from your company - on top of salary and benefits ---> priceless!! :)

[wren13.livejournal.com]

Ooh, no choice then! You can't miss class, we'd all be bereft :-(

I was already planning to encourage the interesting course, as I knew you would enjoy it more.

Westboro

[http://users.livejournal.com/_clarice_/]

My gut feeling was to take the more interesting course, even if it is more challenging. But now with the added info that the easy course conflicts with dance class, well, as wren13 said, what other choice is there? Go with the Westboro course on Tuesdays and come to dance class with us on Thursdays. I would miss you terribly if you were gone for 14 straight weeks!

[lakshmi-amman.livejournal.com]

It looks like I'm in for a doosie of a course, either way I cut it. The O.S. course has you building a primitive operating system from a skeleton. The networking course has you building a client and a server doing some primitive communications. Both are C-centric projects, which I'm pretty rusty at. So... there may not be such a thing as "easy" here... although the networking course is still more familiar.

I suppose if I'm gonna put a lot of time in, having something with significant returns back would be good.

On the other hand, I've even worked of an earlier edition of the networking book before... I might not have to read anything, and I have a tool or two that would be useful...

ARGH! I JUST WANT THIS TO BE EASY!!! I'M DONE! I'M TOASTY! I want a "read it and answer questions" course, not a "let's kick their asses and make sure they can handle grad school" course. I can clearly handle grad school. I have 30 out of 33 credit hours done with a 4.0. I think I got a handle on it.

mumble. mumble. rant. rant.

The lefthand path

[(Anonymous)]

I'm gonna vote for the harder (OS) course too. Having those skills would be really nice, especially if you get bored of ol' papa GD and decide to go elsewhere.

And there is no way you can let mere school work get in the way of Thursday nights!

Stephen in NZ

[sebastian-tombs.livejournal.com]

Should you go the Westboro(ugh) route, I can offer some hopefully helpful food advice (depending on what your tastes are, of course).

[hfcougar.livejournal.com]

I'd also vote for the harder course. Nothing sucked as much in grad school as realizing an entire course had been a huge waste of time.