Directed Study

Okay so as some of you may or may not know, I'm inches from graduating from NMCC with my second degree, this one in Computer Information Systems. I was sitting at my computer near the end of the fall semester and I realized that I only had 4 classes left to take before I finally graduated! I've been taking classes at NMCC since 2003 and I've never missed a semester..so needless to say, I'd like to get out of there. While attempting to do my schedule for the next (and final) semester, I hit a snag. None of the classes that I needed were being offered. First, I thought it was just a situation where all of the classes happened to only be offered during the fall, but then I remembered having to drop E-portal development and I was definitely taking it during the spring. This made me worry a little so I decided to talk to the Deptartment Chair of Business Technology about it to figure out what was going on. This is when things started to get hairy for me. He explained that the CIS major had been dropped and that none of the classes I needed would be offered..ever. All of this I found out just before Christmas vacation, which left almost no time to get the situation sorted. In the end they had managed to allow a course from my previous degree to be used as the final elective I needed, they substituted Speech for Business Communications II and although I had already taken advanced courses in Database Administration..it had been decided that they would put me in a Database Applications class which focuses on basic database knowledge..at a beginner level. I was excited to take a "cake" class at first..but after a couple weeks in there, the excitement has dwindled and I now refer to that class as "busy work" night. I'm not really learning anything new but at least I'm reinforcing my query building skills. Sort of..they dumb it down in Access so you don't really end up understanding how the query really functions.
Anyway, I digress. As I said before, I had 4 classes left and that only takes care of 3. I was originally given the option to take a Security + cert class with Joe McLaughlin but I found out a few weeks ago that the class was cancelled because of low enrollment. Again, I ventured into the Dept. Chair's office and he gave me two options. I could either take an Advanced Web Design class from Husson or I could try to get an instructor to administer a directed study for me. I had already asked Joe if he would do it and he basically gave me a hell no. Yeah..nice way to treat someone who helped pay your salary right? Thankfully, while I was in talking with Dwight(the dept. chair) one night, Brad Potter, who had instructed me in a few other classes, came in to the office. I related my situation to him and he offered to administer a directed study for me, even though the compensation isn't near what it should be. I am thankful that people like him exist, otherwise I might have been stuck in that institution forever.

Brad came up with a course based on Internet Research that was deignated as a 200 level business class and that is what was submitted for my directed study. I received an email from him today that outline my responsibilities:

1. Each week I would like you to find a couple articles online or in magazine from one of the following fields –

a. Server Technology – check out the Cray CX-1!

b. PC Technology

c. Software

d. Storage

e. Networking

f. Security

g. Social Networking – FaceBook, Twitter, MySpace, et

h. Management of IT

2. Please prepare a 2-3 page paper on the articles for submission to me each Friday/Saturday

a. So first one will be due on February 6^th

3. Start a daily journal –with a paragraph or two entry each day – talk about something you experienced at work, something new you have seen, find out what a blog is (www.slashdot.org), an interesting RSS feed.

4. I will forward some more material each week, interesting articles, etc I run across daily

5. Let’s try to meet in person every 3 weeks for ½ hour to review progress.

I am actually excited about this because I will be graded on what I do every single day..and I'll get to share my nerdliness with someone other than my twitter buddies!

This brings me to the purpose of my post. I am going to be using this blog as a resource for my directed study. I will be posting my journal entries here for the instructor to read. You all may enjoy them as well BUT to differentiate my journal posts from my blog posts I will be preceeding my journal post with the course name and number. Thought I would give you all a heads up before you started seeing BUS COM 250 posted all over my blog. I will be making another entry later on tonight regarding the Acer Aspire One netbook I received today. Until then...you can be jealous..because I will be playing with it and you won't!