originally posted october 22, 2002

jumping-off point

Milestone: I have a job offer.

That giant sucking sound you hear is my entire job search schedule being compressed down to a very short time span. I have precious little time to negotiate while the clock starts to tick.

...and did I mention all the other stuff going on?

bipolar semester?

I don't know whether this semester is noticeably easier or harder than before. All I know is that I've been gaining weight.

After a semester defined by late nights and maddening fits of coding close to deadlines, I find myself in my final semester confronted by three computer science courses, one course assistant position, and a job search. Despite it all, I'm getting decent amounts of sleep at relatively normal hours during the semester. Some of the credit goes to my roommate: he sleeps during normal hours, restricting my ability to move around in my room during the evenings. That hasn't stopped me from late-night work runs in the living room and computer clusters.

I can't decide whether this semester is easier or harder than before, in part because of the high reliance on projects in more than one class. I see myself working very long hours to get everything done.

trust the corporation

I'm building up quite a business card collection.

I did virtually no job hunting last year due to my decision to study abroad this past summer. This semester has been filled with meetings, interviews, follow-ups, and phone calls. I even got a mobile phone for the purpose of staying in touch with recruiters.

Now, I have three interviews left this week, a stack of business cards that demands attention, a folder full of dozens of resumes, and only the faintest idea of where this is going. It's going somewhere, fast.

The job market has its own tales of doom and gloom: the annual Technical Opportunities Conference was a pleasant rebound from last year's ghost town, although a local engineering job fair included a lot of "Hello, we're not hiring, have some free pens."

technology turns the tables

Last week, I considered myself the luckiest man to have an extended warranty.

My laptop, which survived a fatal fall in March, remained in warranty as long as I paid Compaq to cover my carelessness. The one-year warranty expired right at the beginning of October, so I decided to bite the bullet and extend it to three years for about $100. About two weeks later, the screen dies. Is it planned obsolescence? Whether it is or it isn't, I effectively saved about 90% on repair.

Sometime over the summer, "The New HP" decided to outsource its entire support operation to India. Now, in addition to the usual hassles of calling tech support, I have to deal with calls that get mangled traveling across half the globe, thickly-accented voices, and inexperienced staff in a call center, even if I call in the middle of the day. Suck.

road trips

Mid-semester break saw a trip back to New York to spend time with my family, a networking event in NYC, and then a College Bowl tournament at which Carnegie Mellon finished with a respectable 6-4 record. I scored a personal-best 40 points per game, fourth out of 47 players, and will receive a Prize for my efforts.

The main thing separating these events from an ordinary mid-semester break weekend: I did all the driving solo. From Pittsburgh to New York to Newark, Delaware back to Pittsburgh totaled some 980 miles, most of it at fast highway speeds. It was by far the most I've ever driven in such a short span, and I'm ready to do it all over again.

class by class

Things are just crazy enough to work. Early returns on grades are not great, but there's very little to base them on so far.

15-381: Artificial Intelligence

The course is fun without being too time-consuming. The most recent assignment, a checkers competition, saw my hastily-programmed AI advance well into the winners' bracket before finally losing out. I think I can put the time and effort into making this course work, after all. The only limiting factor is the exams: memorizing terms is not my cup of tea.

15-393: Software Engineering for IT

The only 12-unit course I'm taking this semester, Software Engineering is taking many hours of my time every week on meetings, collaborations, and review. Fortunately, everyone in my group gets along very well, and we also have a good relationship with the TA. Our project components have been well-received so far, but we all wonder how we will get the actual software development crammed in by the time classes end.

15-491: Dependable and Survivable Systems

One of the more off-beat courses that I've taken in computer science, this class has just eight students that come together at 9:00 AM (or slightly afterwards) to discuss the concepts behind building dependable systems. The reading and assignments are a bit time-consuming, but the newest topic -- user interface design -- has piqued my interest.

70-364: Business Law

My lone "fun" course of the semester, Business Law requires a fair amount of reading and very long lectures. The professor still keeps everything lively and moving along, so it's definitely worth the trouble. Knowing the law could come in handy as I weigh offers and opportunities this semester.

Now's the point where things get fun.

Back to October 2002, or to the year 2002.

Where am I?

This is Weill Aspects, the official news archive of Jason Weill Web Productions. All articles posted to the front page end up here. This page was generated automatically by a series of Perl scripts.

Articles in Weill Aspects are organized solely by date. You may find the Google search in the left column to be useful if you are looking for an article but do not know the date on which it was posted.

Weill Aspects is composed of static web pages generated as appropriate when a new article is posted. It was developed in May 2001 as a way of managing the content on this site. I also used it extensively while in Japan, during which time I did not have continuous access to the Internet. I was able to write daily updates during July and August 2002, pack the files onto a CD-R or memory device, and upload them from the Internet-connected computers at school.

These scripts are all hacked together in less than elegant fashion, and I don't plan to release them. Some of the design that went into Aspects also was used to develop Livestat, a suite of Perl scripts to process statistics for academic competition tournaments. Livestat is available freely.