what's up?

I'm going to take a momentary break from religious/philosophical musings and just give an overview of what is going on in my life as of today:

I've just finished my second week of classes for the semester, and so far all is going well. Here is the list of classes I'm taking this semester:

• Intro to Corporate Finance (FIN301)


• CIS Development Project (CIS420)


• Database Security (CIS483)


• ASP.NET (Satudays in February) (CIS390)


• Visual Basic (Saturdays in April) (CIS392)

The development project is actually an continuation of the Analysis and Design class I took last semester--this semester we actually get to build the system. And we have new groups. I suspect this class will make me very busy when it really gets going; last night was my first four-hour long meeting with my group (which we have decided to name FocusPoint--a name found while brainstorming over e-mail.) I feel pretty optimistic about this class. It will be a whole lot of work but I think it will be fun.

Corporate Finance isn't exactly one of my favorite topics, but I like quantitative work and I think knowing this stuff will be really useful if I end up doing a lot of project work. And I like my prof too--he has a lot of knowledge and enthusiasm about the topic. That does make the class more interesting, and I have an easier time being positive about a subject when the prof is excited about it.

Then there is Database Security, which is part of the new Information Security concentration this is offered to CIS majors. As I took Intro to Database last semester, I think this is a good continuation of that class. Also, I had this prof for Business Data Communications last semester, and I greatly enjoyed his class. He was also the one to spearhead the InfoSec program at UofL. I'd like to go ahead and get the InfoSec concentration (which would result in a certification on my diploma), though it would inevitably push my graduation date to Spring 2006 rather than Fall 2005. It would be worth it though, expecially since I would only need to take classes part-time in the spring.

The other two classes haven't started yet. But I will need to learn ASP.NET for the development project anyway, so I'm really glad I decided to enroll in it.

I'm still looking for a co-op, which I need to graduate. I've send my resume to a couple of places that are posted on the UofL site, but I haven't heard back yet.

Since this has turned out to be a rather long post, I think I'll save the rest of my life for a later entry. So check back soon :)