My First Day in College..

Here’s a blog post about my first day in college, excuse the length but for my own records, i’d like to have this to look back on in the future 😛

I got up at 7am, having went to bed at the ridiculous time of 11pm 😯 (normally i don’t go to bed ’til 3am).

So getting up wasn’t too bad.. then again it’s a novelty, it won’t be so painless in a few weeks time once the weather gets worse and the work gets harder 😛

Anyway, i arrived at about 8.20am to literally deserted car parks.. so much for the parking problem i’d feared 🙄 I sat in the car for about 20 minutes listening to the radio as i wanted to see what time the place fills up by..

So in i go, to be greeted by a fellow boards.ie member and one of my blog readers who i’d never met before 😆 He knew me from my picture/ID post.. so that was nice.. an instant contact.. I also met another boards.ie member but didnt really get a chance to talk to her much.. as our group was split up in 3 🙄

In total, there’s 48 in the group, broken into 16 per class.. As far as i know there’s 4 females in the group, not one of them in my class 😕 But things aren’t final yet and no doubt there’ll be chopping and changing over the next few weeks..

I’ll have 26 hours of classwork per week, which i’m thrilled about.. it means about 40 hours of work max per week all-in, which is nothing. I’ve worked 70/80 hour weeks before (school, day job, internet) so it’s no big deal.

In total, i’ve 6 different modules this year, over 2 semesters.. i’ll give a one word answer as to what i think they’ll be like..

• Programming Principles – Hard
• Maths for Computing – Hard
• Study and Learning Skills – Easy
• Computer Applications -Easy
• Computer Architecture – Easy
• Interactive Multimedia -Easy

That’s first impressions.. bare in mind i haven’t even sat any of those classes yet 😉 Stuff like MS Office, Dreamweaver, Photoshop etc.. is what i’d call ‘idiot proof’ software.. you can learn as you go along.. ok, if you’re learning from scratch, it’s a different kettle of fish. But having breezed through ECDL and having worked with most media/editing software, that’s all fairly straight forward for me..

Mind you, i was caught out by a question today in MS word which involved alignment/tabs and filling the tab spaces with dots or underscores.. there’s not much i can’t do in word, so i was taken a back by that question.. or rather by my inability to find the answer withing a few clicks. I thought ‘easy’ – go to format/tabs/select appropriate number. Wasn’t that easy. It took me about 15 minutes of messing about until i finally got it… i think i had to highlight everything before i added the tabs plus manually key in at what cm i wanted the tabs…. i had the time to spare though as everyone else was still a question or two behind 😆 That was in computer applications class; the only class we had today. That’s basically advanced ECDL stuff, so it should be childs play..

Programming has always been my weak spot. It’s not that i can’t do it, it’s that i couldn’t be arsed. Anything that involves numbers, formulas, maths etc.. i just have no enthusiasm towards whatsoever.. i’d never learn that sort of stuff on my own, but ironically, i want to learn it as i believe i need it if i’m to progress further as web entrepreneur.. So i’m expecting the worst, hopefully it’ll be ok.

Maths for Computing should link in with programming so that’s why i’m thinking both of them will be hard. I’ll have to work at them early on otherwise they may start to go over my head..

The rest, like i said are what i’d call ‘idiot proof’.. Study skills etc.. should be a bluffers subject all about personal growth and all of that stuff.

Computer Architecture can’t be too hard.. basic components of a PC, networking, routers etc.. i haven’t built a PC or anything but i’m guessing it’s fairy straight forward and again, something i’ll enjoy doing as i’d never do it on my own, but i’d like to know about it.

So that’s really it.. i have to add in the fact the lecturers all seem sound as a pound.. up for the craic, down to earth and really warm/friendly/approachable so i’ll have no problems in that department..

The college also uses ‘Moodle‘ – basically a private online network where lecturers upload notes/test dates/info etc.. so that’s handy, provided of course they all use it which i highly doubt 😎

So first day over and done with, and things ran smoothly for me. Now i have to do it all over again tomorrow with, get this, a 3 hour gap between classes 👿 I’m all for breaks and stuff, but that’s madness. 3 hours of doing nothing only wanting the time to tick by 🙄 This is when i start to regret not living on/near campus 😛

On a brighter note, we’re (just our group) is going bowling on wednesday (paid for by the college, which is nice of them), plus we get off at 3pm on Thursday and 11am on Friday 😈 I hate the long breaks though, such a waste of time.. i might take the laptop in if my timetable stays like that… make a few blog posts or browse about on the wi-fi… speaking of wi-fi, it’s great to have an n95 with built in wi-fi.. it means i can check/send email literally everywhere i go on campus 😆