School Days

As I lie in my bed each night I think about how everybody must be wondering about my semester. Now for all of my imaginary wonderers, I am ready to divulge a bit of information.

This semester has been going fairly well. As you may recall, I've been taking 17 credit hours (along with trying to work 20 hours and fit some research in). The big difference in my classes this semester is that a couple of them are night classes. This has turned out to be very good for me. In the past, most of my wasted time came in the evenings when I would be at home. This semester, I have been forced to give most of that time up and instead spend it in lectures and labs. This has allowed me to work in the mornings, go to class in the early afternoons and then do my homework and research in the afternoons before my night classes. Here's a bit of the nitty-gritty:

ECE 6960 - History of Computer and Engineering Logic

This class has turned out to be just as boring as expected - which I'm more than ok with. The teacher is a former professor (who retired from teaching more than 25 years ago) who wrote his own book. He has a passion for logic and is teaching the class without a salary. The information has been somewhat interesting, but I'm afraid I don't hold the same passion for the material as the teacher does. There have been 5 homework assignments (all extremely easy) and 2 tests (which you could do just fine on with a couple of hours of study). This class will probably take the cake as the easiest graduate course that I will take :).

ECE 6710 - Digital VLSI Design

I'm not a huge fan of the digital world. I'm much more in tune with my analog side. Luckily for me, I've been able to get through this class without too much difficulty so far. Now that we are doing all of our assignments in teams, I conider myself lucky to have teamed up with a few teammates that are much more savvy, experienced and interested in having to program in Verilog. We are just starting our final project - which is a CR16 microprocessor. I'll post more on that later.

PHYS 6610 - Electronics I

You would think that a class titled Electronics I would be a breeze for an Electrical Engineering graduate student. While this is mostly true (I only go to class on exam days), the class (at least the tests) have turned out to be more difficult than expected. I haven't been studying much for the exams and that becomes a slight problem when the teacher writes the test to check your knowledge of the few unusual cases. Aside from the tests, the homework and labs have been pretty easy and I've had no problem finishing them in half the time that it takes most of the students.

CH EN 5756 - Nuclear Engineering I

This has been my most diificult class so far. The homework has been extremely difficult and time-consuming and the labs and lab reports have been really tough as well. I've done pretty good on both tests so far though. The class has really been quite interesting and enjoyable though.

I think that things are going along pretty well. The hardest part of the semester remaining is my class project from my VLSI class. All of my other classes should continue humming along just like they have been, with or without me.