According to a systemwide email sent out to all UOP students last week, the school will shortly be moving close to if not into the 21st century. They won't be exactly Web 2.0, but I'm sure we'll be up to technology from about 2001 or 2002. There will be a new OLS (Online Learning System) that will hopefully be easier to use than Outlook Express or Outlook Web Access.
I just finished up my Web Programming units. I just had ten weeks between two classes of html and JavaScript. I'll be happy to get back to writing papers. I had a really good instructor, but I seem to be missing a part of my brain that handles code easier. I'm much better of with hardware setup and software configuration than I am with writing code be it C, html, Java, etc. The five week classes that we have are not long enough for me to work with the code well enough to learn it. Once I complete my degree, I hope to go back to the textbooks and slowly work with the examples and exercises to gain a better understanding. In my degree program, I have covered C, Java, html, and JavaScript as well as Unix shell scripting. I'm not proficient in any of them at this point.
Because we get a week off for Memorial Day, I now must turn my attention to another hurdle to graduation: foundational credits. Although a lot of my military training and experience as well as other college courses I've taken do count toward credit, I still have to make up for some humanities and health credits. My academic counselor suggested the Analyzing and Interpreting Literature CLEP and the Here's To Your Health DANTES. I went to Barnes and Noble this past Saturday to look for study guides. From the Analyzing and Interpreting Literature CLEP guide, I don't believe I have anything to worry about. My wife says that my Bible studying has given me enough of a background for that, plus I've always been an avid reader. The study guide didn't really intimidate me, so I'm not worried at all. The DANTES, however, makes me shudder. I decided that rather than try to gather all of the books in the bibliography (which could take a lot of time and money), I would find a study guide. I found very slim pickings, however. What worries me most is that I could not find very much information at all on what value the few guides available offer. I ended up buying this guide for $34.95, which can be downloaded immediately, so the guide is already on my hard drive (and open in my browser via the Adobe plug-in). I also found this book on Amazon.com, but the reviews made me wary of purchasing it. Most reviewers said that the book was worthless. One said to make sure that you get the Study Guide rather than the Q&A. I could not find any way to verify which if either this book is, so I decided against it.
I could not find any blog entries either. I guess maybe I will be the first blogger to discuss this issue. I guess people finishing up college credit have better things to do than maintain a blog.
One other obstacle to graduation is a core class that somehow did not get scheduled called "Critical Thinking and Computer Logic". I may try to do a guided study for this course. How hard could it be? It's supposed to be one of the first classes in the program and I'm nearing the end.
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