Month: August 2007

On the first day of class in Databases, we were asked to write down three expectations for ourselves and three expectations for the professor. We also had to write our names onto the card. In my usual, “I doubt they read this stuff style” (think French journals circa 2002-2003), I wrote down that the professor should:

“Host an end of year party themed around Russia, databases, or some other random topic”

Today, the professor was reading out some of the expectations and rumors that folks turned in on Thursday, and lo and behold read mine out loud to the class. It got a good chuckle, and the professor said it made her happy to read, but for one second I definitely thought that I was in trouble.

Maybe I’ll learn and stop doing these things because professors actually read these things. But I won’t. What’s the fun in taking things too seriously?

Because of the way the schedule works, I’m seeing my Tuesday/Thursday classes for the first time today. I don’t start until 2pm, but I go until 6:30pm. It really isn’t too crazy, but at it is a long day. What I’m most worried about is 3 75-minute tests on the same day. I’ll need to find a way out of that situation if it comes to that.

We had to introduce ourselves to a neighbor as part of our course bonding experience. My neighbor is Roger King, who took his first CSC course at NCSU in 1973 (using Fortran 4). That’s just sick. I think there was a mention of punchcards… We also set down goals for the course. The professor said that she often sees that getting an A is a popular goal. If a goal of yours is to get an A, and that’s just not an expectation, then you’ve already failed. Just a thought.

My favorite line of the day came in HCI. My professor went on sabbatical in 2005, and never checked his voicemail messages. To this day he still hasn’t checked his voicemail messages. Why? He finds life is much easier when you don’t have to worry about voicemail messages. That’s just great.

I think this is going to be a really good term. I’ll have lots of time to do my own thing, but, beyond that, I also think that I’m going to learn a lot as well.

Today I started my final year of college for this go-around. I think that before I die, that I will end up with a Ph.D in Economics. I think that if Economics in the real world weren’t such a banking/finance endeavor, that I would have found myself doing Economics full time. However, I just don’t care enough about the Stock Market right now. I’d rather solve problems of rationality and how poorly we humans act accordingly.

My econ class this term is in Economic Development focusing on Third World countries. I think this class is going to really show me the non-op/ed side of economic development. My new goal is to get knowledge. I think that that’s where most informed people are lacking. Instead of knowing truths, we glue together ideas and factoids. What we fail to realize is the general lack of causality between factoids and truths. I’m pretty excited about this course, and hopefully tomorrow’s courses won’t disappoint.