Jibberish

To conclude my days of blog-posting, I will sum up my first semester at Penn State as an IST student. I have divided this post to four sections: Housing, People, Courses, and Activities.

Housing
Thompson Hall 2nd Floor. That says a lot. Being in the IST Special Living Option has so far been a great experience. Because a lot of the guys on the floor are in my classes, I sometimes seek them for help in programming assignments or SRA labs. It has become convenient to meet up in SRA groups and IST groups for meeting/planning. Also, there is a lot of gaming going on late nights. My all-time favorite, Counter-Strike, thrived at first, scheduled to be played every Thursday on the IST floor. However, that died out once Team Fortress 2 was released. Now, there isn't much gaming. Even though gaming can be done online, it is a lot of fun gaming w/ other people on the floor when u can hear other people yell curse words after being killed. Being in the IST-House has also really helped me make new friends and stick with them throughout the semester.

People
Knowing one person leads to knowing 4 others. Then it leads to 16, and so on. I have met a wide variety of friends, and some of my best friends live on my floor. They include Matt Maisel, Harry Miller, Kyle Dodson, David Recker, and of course, my roommate Garrett Miller who was featured in a previous post. I'm really glad that I've met these people, and I'm almost sure that I will stick with them for the rest of college.

Courses
Classes this semester, in my opinion, are ridiculously easy. My toughest class is economics (micro), mainly because there are about 700 students that fill up 100 Thomas. It's hard to stay focused, with my friends next to me and the freedom of doing whatever you want (or showing up whenever you want). The result of not paying attention became apparent when i got a 54 on the second exam! I still didn't pay much attention after that, but studied hard the night before the third exam and only got a 84. The IST 110H course was not cake, but it was definitely unlike any other course I've taken or expected to be. It was a lot of fun just being on the computers for the entire class, because that is basically my life. I liked how there was no textbook or tests but still a lot of work. The work done for this class was meaningful, and it gave me a kick start into Information Sciences and Technology. The SRA class was somewhat poor. The new professor was not 100% of what he was doing, and relied on Gerry Santoro to come up with class projects and assignments. Quizzes were 6 questions, and technically you only need to answer 4 to get a 100. The last question was always a Penn State question that has nothing to do w/ SRA, and a 5/6 would automatically be a 100. I don't remember learning much during class. The textbook was technical but did not really help us with what we were learning in class. We learned more about terroristic threats and emergency plans instead of encrypting and viruses and hackers. Comp Sci was a joke. My music classes were fun because I got to meet people (especially females) outside of IST.

Activities
I joined Club Tennis and Sinfonietta, which is one of Penn State's three orchestras. I am also in SRA club. Club Tennis is pretty useless; it is just a way to get court time on the varsity courts. They do not really run anything, except tell you to go out there and hit. Sinfonietta was brutal. It was an orchestra that had 100% acceptance rate and was intended for music grad students to gain experience in conducting. Also, it was aimed for those who are not music majors. Every Tuesday night for 2 hours. I have already played the pieces we played. I did not meet anyone, because there was no time to talk to anyone and I knew no one in the orchestra. I will try out for the Philharmonic Orchestra next semester, which will be much more intense. SRA club was a lot more fun that I expected. Capture the Flag was a lot of fun, and I met my roommate for next year Justin Brooks from SRA club. There were also some good speakers for the club, such as the lady from IBM and Joe Koletar, who wrote the FBI Career Guide.