Plans and such (long)

Thank God for Julie M.

I was talking to her on the phone tonight, and I was expressing a little frustration, when she gave me an epiphaniacal moment. I was telling her I want to do school stuff now, and there's nothing left to do, really. I'm ready to go. And I said, "I want to go now, and not have to wait for spring," and she said, "Why don't you go in the fall?" And I told her that I wanted to start in the spring so I would be on schedule with the other students. I'm going back slowly. First seven credit hours, then ten, then fifteen, and from there on out it's full load all the time. I wanted to go back slowly since it's been so long (twenty years, yikes, I can't be THAT old) since I've been in school. So what I was going to do was split up the first semesters classes into two groups. But to do that, I needed to finish them all up at the same time the other students were finishing their first semester. Starting in spring allows me to finish all the first semester classes at the same time (end of fall semester) that the others will be finishing up the same classes. And the while I'm explaining this, my brain is working in the background going, "There WERE classes that you couldn't fit in anywhere. If you added an extra semester, you could take everything." (My brain is good at multitasking like that. It likes to do multiple things at a time.) And I kept turning that idea over in my head, and wondering why not? The only answer that occurred to me was that I would have more loans to pay off by about a thousand dollars. Now, that's NOT a drop in the bucket, but when you consider the trade off (getting to take extra classes), I think it's worth it. I still have plenty of time before fall starts, I think. I think it said registration from May to September second. And I already have all my classes picked out. I've got some fun classes too. (You're all gonna look at my class schedule and wince, lol. My idea of fun is kind of strange, y'all.) So I need to talk to my case manager about it, and find out if I've been accepted yet. I haven't gotten a letter yet, but my advisor said today that I don't need to get a transcript, so they should have everything they need. I'll try and register for classes tomorrow and see if it will let me. (I hope it does, but we'll see.) My mom will say it's too soon. I'm not ready. But I really am. I've been thinking about this for about a year now, and my therapist just galvanized me into action. I did good meeting my advisor. I was on time, and I left myself plenty in case I got lost, which I did. Just a little bit lost though. Ten minutes or so. The sign wasn't clear, and that's my story and I'm sticking to it. (I found an entrance, but it said go back outside and go through the double doors. I didn't realize that the double doors they were referring to went into a different part of the building. It looked like multiple entrances to the same room, ya know? Yes, I'm silly. So anyways, here's my plan. Starting school in August of 2012, I'll go for fifteen (Yes, FIFTEEN) semesters. There are ten semesters of classes (which is a year more than most people have), and five semesters of Coop. (Coop, for those unfamiliar with the term, is when you work in a company using the skills you learned in class. Coop stands for cooperative education. Businesses get students to work for free, and the university gets paid tuition. The student gets valuable experience, and can then cite real world work experience. It's a win~win~win, lol.) I won't graduate until spring of 2018, which seems like a really long time. But it will be soooooooo worth it. I'm so excited to do this. I'm just hoping I can do it. My mom worries about me making it to classes. And I have a hard time self motivating. I admit that. Unfortunately, ATM there's not really anything worth getting out of bed for. I'm getting up earlier, but still not early. I didn't fall asleep this morning till about eight AM, and I still got up at one thirty to go see my advisor. So if it's important to me, I CAN do it. And I'm very motivated. So we'll see how it goes. I know I used to do it during my working life. I KNOW I can do it. Now I just have to prove it.

So here are the lists of classes I'm taking. Yes, I WILL be a well rounded student. I have a lot of interests, so I'm taking an eclectic combination of classes. (I'm listing all fifteen semesters here, so you can see when I'll be cooping and when I'll be in school. Also, my first two years, I've scheduled to take the summer off. I may add some classes there, if there are things that interest me. But this is pretty firm, and I don't want to make any changes. The numbers in parentheses are the number of credit hours the course entails. For my foreign friends, classes are listed to have ?? credit hours. For example, a three credit hour class could meet Monday Wed Friday for an hour each time, or Tuesday and Thursday for an hour and a half each time. The number of credit hours a class is usually corresponds to the amount of hours you're in that class during the week. There are a couple of classes that are one credit hour but meet three hours a week. Those classes aren't weighted as heavily. Chorus is a good example. No homework, but some memorization. Since it's not a class with tests and such, it's weighed as less. So even though it meets three hours a week, it's only one credit hour. HTH for those of you who aren't American. If you have questions, feel free to ask.

Curriculum for Bachelor's of Science Information Technology; Software Design Track

Semester One ~ Fall 2013 (7)
• Computer Applications (3)
• Introduction to Information Technology (3)
• University of Cincinnati Women's Chorus (1)

Semester Two ~ Spring 2013 (10)
• Computer Networking (3)
• Fundamentals of Unix (3)
• World History I (3)
• University of Cincinnati Women's Chorus (1)

Semester Three ~ Fall 2014 (15)
• Computer Programming I (3)
• Pre Calculus (5)
• Fundamentals of Digital Media (3)
• University of Cincinnati Women's Chorus (1)

Semester Four ~ Spring 2014 (17)
• Computer Programming II (3)
• Database Management I (3)
• System Administration (3)
• Fundamentals of Digital Media (3)
• Introduction to COOP for CECH (College of Education, Criminal Justice, and Human Services) (1)
• University of Cincinnati Women's Chorus (1)

Semester Five ~ Fall 2014 (16)
• Contemporary Programming (3)
• Database Management II (3)
• Implications of Information Technology (3)
• Fundamentals of Web Development (3)
• Applied Statistics for Human Services (3)
• University of Cincinnati Women's Chorus (1)

Semseter Six ~ Spring 2015
• Coop for CECH

Semester Seven ~ Summer 2015 (16)
• Mobile Device Programming (3)
• Information Security and Assurance (3)
• Extended Basic Russian I (3)
• Introduction to Discrete Mathematics (3)
• Introduction to Shakespeare (3)
• University of Cincinnati Women's Chorus (1)

Semester Eight ~ Fall 2015
• Coop for CECH

Semester Nine ~ Spring 2016 (16)
• Client Side Web Programming (3)
• Human Computer Interaction (3)
• System Analysis and Design (3)
• Extended Basic Russian II (3)
• Physics Mathematics Prerequisite I (3)
  Or
  Fundamentals of Web Applications and Resources (3)
• University of Cincinnati Women's Chorus (1)

Semester Ten ~ Summer 2016
• Coop for CECH

Semester Eleven ~ Fall 2016 (16)
• Web Server Application Development (3)
• Extended Basic Russian III (3)
• Physics Mathematics Prerequisite (3)
  Or
  Website Creation and Management (3)
• Technical and Scientific Writing (3)
• Special Topics in Software Application Development (3)
• University of Cincinnati Women's Chorus (1)

Semester Twelve ~ Spring 2017
• Coop for CECH

Semester Thirteen ~ Summer 2017
• Coop for CECH

Semester Fourteen ~ Fall 2017 (18 or 19)
• Senior Design Project Management I (3)
• Senior Design Software Application Develpment Technical Practicum (3)
• Enterprise Application Development(3)
• Basic Spanish I (5)
• Introduction to Physics I (3)
  Or
  Introductory Biology I (3)
  And
  Introductory Biology Laboratory (1)
• University of Cincinnati Women's Chorus (1)

Semester Fifteen ~ Spring 2018 (18)
• Senior Design Project Management II (3)
• Senior Design Software Application Development Technical Practicum II (3)
• Management in Information Technology (3)
• Basic Spanish II (5)
• Introduction to Physics II (3)
  Or
  Introductory Biology II (3)
• University of Cincinnati Women's Chorus (1)

I know, it's enough to make me tired too, lol. I love the idea of the programming classes, and I can hardly wait to dig in. And I learned to do something new with HTML tonight too. This is my first attempt at CSS, or cascading style sheets. Basically, at the beginning of your document, you tell the computer it's HTML. Then you tell it paragraphs, heading, and formatting in this form or that. (Each thing you do (each paragraph, each list, each table) has a designator. You list the designator and tell the computer what colors and styles you want things to be. It's pretty cool. Different from what I'm used to, but now I only have to tell it once Papyrus and pink, and the rest flows from that. Saves me a lot of trouble and work!!

Well, that's it for me tonight folks. It's now six am and I'm tired. Heading off to bed. Y'all have a good night, and thanks again to my followers and commenters. You can now tell me how crazy I am to take so many classes, lol. I'm gonna try and catch up with some blogs tomorrow, but we'll see!!!