Where have I been this past month?

Well, this is definitely the busiest semester I’ve ever had at Georgia Tech. To go along with that, I attended a career fair and lined up a few interviews in the process. I’m still trying to decide between grad school and the work force, so I decided I’d see what opportunities are out there. So far I’ve had interviews with Bloomberg, GEICO, and Oracle. I had a second round interview with GEICO and I have a second round interview scheduled with Oracle.

We’re half way through the semester now, so I have a good feel for my classes.

Processor Design (CS 3220) is the most time consuming but also the most interesting class this semester. We’re basically implementing an entire ISA (Instruction Set Architecture) on a piece of actual hardware using Verilog. My partner and I implemented the ISA in perl, which is good, because I’ve been wanting to learn perl.

Software Engineering (CS 3300) is interesting as well. We’ve built a program from the ground up doing all documentation before actually coding (Waterfall Process). Now we’re coding the application and it does seem easier to code considering the amount of detail that went into the planning. I believe in our next project we’ll be doing the reverse.

OS Design (CS 3210) is different than I thought it would be. There’s a lot of lecturing and not as much hands on lab work. Part of the blame has been the software we’re using for our simulations, but now that it’s fixed, we still haven’t done as much lab work as I had hoped we would. Hopefully it’ll pick up in the second half of the semester.

Finally, TAing for CS 1316 has been fun. I enjoy teaching the recitations (assuming I’m prepared) and also teaching students in the one-on-one office hours. I’m determined to help non-CS majors learn Java!!

The CETL 2000 class, for first time TAs, is informative, but I could think of better things to do with an extra hour in the morning (zzzzzz).

In unrelated school / web news, THE TAMPA BAY RAYS ARE IN THE ALCS!!!!!!

I’ve been a Rays fan since I’ve been in college (~4 years) and it’s amazing to see how far they’ve come. From worst record in baseball and finishing last in all but 1 season since they’ve been a team (in the 1 season, they finished second to last and open champaigne bottles to celebrate not being in last) to winning the AL East and having a chance to go to the World Series. That’s quite an amazing feat and shows how any team can bring the right people together, work hard, and get things done without having to buy their way to a championship, even though it hasn’t worked for the Yankees for a while.

Yellow Jackets are off to a good start too, looks like Paul Johnson’s offense is starting to come together. I predicted we’d have 3 turnovers per game due to the amount of tossing and quick inside handoffs that go along with the triple option, but so far they’ve proved me wrong. I hope they keep it up!

Until next time (zzzzzzz)