originally posted september 07, 2001

false start

Uh-oh.

Year three is underway, and week two is ending up. The early returns suggest that this will be a very, very long fall semester. Five days a week, my day starts with a work obligation at 8:00 or 9:00 AM. This must be what that "real world" thing is like.

workaholism returns

I am once again working two jobs this semester: one at the University Center Information Desk, and one as a Course Assistant for a non-majors Computer Science course. The work at the information desk is just the same as ever, except that all three of my shifts run during the ungodly hours of 8:00 - 11:00 AM. Fortunately, most of those hours are pretty dead in the University Center, so I can at least get some homework done.

Work as a course assistant so far has proven more time-consuming, with many weekly meetings to discuss the current status of the recitations, the course, and the homework. I have weekly office hours from 7:30 - 9:30 PM on Wednesdays, plus additional hours by appointment. Fortunately, unlike at the information desk, people tend to be nice to me as a course assistant. I only hope they're still nice to me when it's three hours before the due time and their project doesn't work.

Course assistants are a dying breed, apparently: the introductory programming labs are being stripped of computers to be used as lecture halls instead, leaving students to either use their own laptops or the public computer clusters on campus. In some other courses now, an instant-message-like system is being implemented where students can chat with CA's in real time about their homework assignment. Personally, I would much rather meet with someone in person. When someone's about to smash their keyboard into their monitor, I find that it's much better to take them away from the computer to do some work on pencil and paper.

does it support "scrape fingernails"?

One of my courses this semester is using Blackboard, a web-based system which basically acts as a portal for all of my courses which support it. While the idea works on paper, in practice it is horrible.

I don't even want to know how much money CMU spent in licensing and/or developing the piece of garbage that is Blackboard. First of all, the login screen doesn't even display on all browsers; on Opera 5, a web browser I use in Linux, I get a vague warning telling me to enable cookies. (Cookies are, of course, enabled in Opera already.) In Mozilla 0.9.3, also known as Netscape 6.1, I can only get decent performance when I use a little-known configuration option to disguise the browser and identify it as Microsoft Internet Explorer 5.5 for Windows. A friend of mine using OmniWeb for Mac OS X had similar results: by changing the user agent string, the pathetic "browser detection" on Blackboard can be easily circumvented. This is a web application which requires no plug-ins; the fact that it requires certain web browsers is an insult.

Blackboard is intended to replace all course web sites and put a consistent front-end on them. While that is satisfactory for simple things like downloading course lecture notes and assignments, its discussion board interface is horrible. In the past, most courses used campus bboards to disseminate information and take questions from students. Most courses still do. These bboards can be checked using any mail client, or even a variety of scriptable and automated utilities regarding e-mail. I can check whether I have new e-mail in a matter of seconds. Now, with Blackboard, I need to log into a web site, click the name of my course, click "Communications," click "Discussion boards," and then check whether new messages have been posted. What used to take five seconds can now take a couple of minutes if the Blackboard server is slow.

Blackboard is designed to help computer-illiterate professors manage their courses' Internet presences. Computer-illiterate professors do not work in the Computer Science Department. HTML is not that hard to learn. Bboards are trivially easy to use. I really hope that I'm not subjected to such a horrible system in the future.

class by class

Early returns are not promising.

15-200, Data Structures

The course has started off simply enough, and I'm hoping that students will continue to attend office hours with questions. Prof. Kesden is being very ambitious in a non-majors class, but I only hope that the students budget enough time for the class every week. This will not be an easy A.

15-415, Database Applications

An afternoon course, starting at 3:00 PM, this is the only course in which I have slept this semester. The concepts are starting out basic, but at least I already have a partner for our all-encompassing semester project. Other students have told me that this course should not be a difficult one, although the time commitment is definitely an issue. Outlook: Moderate.

15-451, Algorithm Design and Analysis

More math and computer science theory. Theory is definitely not My Thing, but at least I know plenty of friends taking the course. As the first computer science course I've taken which requires oral presentations, I don't know quite what to expect. At least I've seen some of the material before. Outlook: Good.

57-117, Choral Ensemble for Non-Majors

Taught by two-time Grammy Award winner Prof. Robert Page, this course is very intense. Prof. Page pulls no punches, and plans to utilize the full 80 minutes and not a second more. This is my latest class, running from 4:30 - 5:50 PM on Tuesdays and Thursdays. After sitting through 80 minutes of Databases lecture, I am not looking forward to running halfway across campus to arrive at lecture before the doors lock at 4:30 PM. Fortunately, the Repertory Chorus is made up of people with "limited experience" and non-voice majors. It's intimidating to see that all of my high school experience is lumped under "limited," but this is a good first step considering that I haven't sung in any ensemble in two and a half years. Outlook: Uncertain.

82-371, Advanced Japanese I

Oh dear.

Very rarely has a course made me feel like such an idiot so fast. Since day one, when my already rusty Japanese could barely get me through the syllabus, I have had a deer-in-the-headlights look for 50 minutes straight during the course. I haven't been able to allocate nearly enough time for the homework, and I have bombed the first two quizzes. Word to the wise: be wary of any course which has three quizzes in the first two weeks. Fortunately, I know the professor from past classes, and she's very nice. There's only so much that such familiarity can do before my general ineptitude takes over.

This weekend will be spent getting back up to speed. If I drop this course, I will need to wait a full year before taking it again. If I still intend to travel to Japan next year, language skill is absolutely crucial. Outlook: Critical.

82-373, Structure of the Japanese Language

With an English-based discussion structure and a familiar band of classmates (many of whom took 82-273, Introduction to Japanese Language and Culture, last semester) this class does not look too intimidating. It is taught by the same instructor that I have for Advanced Japanese I, the only instructor who teaches my classes on Mondays and Fridays.

I'll grant that the subject matter is more dry and scientific than in Language and Culture, but this is still an interesting class that I wouldn't want to miss. Outlook: Good.

Caffeine is good.

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