My Thirteenth semester at Ivy Tech Community College (Spring 2014)

My Thirteenth semester at Ivy Tech Community College (Spring 2014)

I was really not looking forward to this semester. Maybe it was because the last one was so stressful. I ordered my books the Friday before classes were due to start.

I noticed there were different book requirements for the different CINS 279 classes; of course the class I was signed up for required the most books. Also some of the classes only went 8 weeks instead of 16 weeks. I tried to contact my advisor to change classes, but he never contacted me back, and of course you need an advisors approval to sign up for these classes. I really do not see the point in that, if you have taken the prerequisite classes and passed them, you should be able to sign up for a class. I am not even sure my advisor checked anything before filling out the paper work. Well as luck would have it, I was able to sign up for the CINS 279 class out of Warsaw, without needing an advisors approval. So I dropped the CINS I was signed up for and returen the books to Amazon, and had to pay a return charge, but I still came out way ahead.

I have tried to sign up for classes as soon as I can and they do not always have all the classes listed and certainly do not have the required material listed. And who would have thought there was that much of a difference in classes between locations, some locations required no books, and fewer weeks. I think it is ridicules that the books are not standard between locations, but a difference in the time period is really not right and should be looked into. Note: after taking the class I can see why eight weeks would have been enough. The Capstone test only goes for part of the semester and the work could be done in eight weeks, at least for the CINS 279 class I took.  

I signed up for an Advance C++ class out of Elkhart, but it was canceled.

Classes:

CINS 203          Systems Analysis and Design (Wednesday 7:00-9:45 (Elkhart))

This was an advisor approved class.  But when I meet with the advisor he was surprised the paper said that about the class. From the post I saw online it looked like it was advisor approved. I did not care for this class at all. It touched on a lot of stuff very briefly. And it was just power points.

CINS 279          Capstone Course (Online (Warsaw))

I switched to this class from the one I originally signed up for at the Anderson campus. So start from the end of the alphabet when just randomly picking an online class. I switched when I saw the amount of work Anderson campus expected for a two credit hour course. I have taken other classes out of the Anderson campus and they are great professors at that campus. And the CINS 279 class at Anderson would have been great if I was at the beginning of my career, instead of nearing the end. 

EECT 209        Industrial Computer Control I (Thursday 7:00-9:45 (South Bend))

I was disappointed when I found out Rahim Negahban was not teaching the class, he was original listed to teach the class. Professor Thomas Holwerda turned out to be a great professor. 

I knew nothing about PLC’s so I did not know what to expect from this class. And it turns out you use ladder logic to program PLC’s. I guess it is called ladder logic because your program looks like a ladder and the call each statement a rung. Well I understand the logic part very well, but putting that in ladder format is not as easy as it sounds. I think part of it was I was afraid I was forcing normal program logic into the program to make it easier for me to program and understand. 

 

 

 

 

 

Twelfth semester (Fall 2013)

My Twelfth semester (Fall 2013)

The information in blackboard was wrong (old stuff let in from other classes) or missing for classes. I think the missing stuff was the teachers’ fault, the duplicate stuff I think happened because they copy old classes in blackboard to make the new classes and it copied too much.

They upgraded blackboard during the Thanksgiving weekend. This was a small pain since I had one Monday class that was not on break that week. It was a pretty big difference and now you have to click a link to see comments, that is a big draw back.

Classes:

CINS 236          Advanced Java Programming (Online)

I had this teacher before and he was not too difficult, is why I signed up for this class session. He is more concerned with you learning and passing, than forcing you to memorize everything.  It turned out this was the only advance java class (online or face to face) to run this semester. This class used a book that was not written to be a text book. Since this was an advance class we skipped over the first 7 chapters. So I need to go back and read the complete book.

This teacher runs online classes the way they should be run, a lot of the online classes are run pretty badly.

ECON 202       Microeconomics (Monday 7:00-9:45 (Elkhart))

They had the wrong text book listed for this class. Even though it was the week before the class was due to start before they let us know this, I had not bought the book. I had to run to Elkhart to buy the book.

There was not much I liked about this class including the time, location and how it was run, I will not go into detail. I will say the content of the class is interesting and everyone should try to learn a little bit about economics.

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Eleventh semester

My Eleventh semester (Summer 2013)

The summer semesters are 8 weeks, so they go by fast, but the work you have to do each week is doubled. Usually the classes also meet twice a week. But BUSN 101 is a hybrid class so one of the sessions each week is on the Internet. Both classes have us do work on the Internet, so it is hard to tell the difference between the hybrid and non-hybrid class as far as the online work required.

Both of these classes are core classes that transfer to other universities, so they have set areas they need to teach and have a final that covers those areas.   

I hit 100 credit hours at the end of this semester.

Classes:

ACCT 101       Financial Accounting (Tuesday and Thursday 1:00-3:45)

This was an interesting class, because I deal with accounting and accounting terms, so this class helped explain what all of that meant. The instructor said this was the hardest class ivy tech had, I do not agree with that, but it is not easy. You have to pay attention to details and check everything twice, as I missed simple math problems on most of the test. Most of our homework was done on a computer, but a couple were turn in problems, and I used Excel and when I summed it included the year which was the heading, in the total, that lost me a couple of points. Eight people signed up for the class and four finished it.

BUSN             101        Introductions to Business (Tuesday 4:00-6:45)

This was a hybrid class so it met only once a week, that was nice. We covered three chapters a week, and had to do a paper in APA format. This class was not as hard as accounting, but it was not easy. Having been around businesses for about 30 years I had heard a lot of the terms before this class and that made the class easier. The final seemed easy, but I missed more points than I thought I did. A woman in the class said the same thing. I think only one person dropped the class, but one other person should have as she did not take any of the tests or write the paper. She said she did not have a computer. They do have a library with computers students can use. Financial aid does take into consideration dropped and failed classes. And if I am going to put the time in going to class I am at least going to try.  She did show up for the final.   

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Tenth Semester

My Tenth semester (Spring 2013) (start of my fourth year)

Since I finished all the classes I needed for the Electrical Engineering and Computer Technology (EECT) last semester this semester I took classes for Computer Information Services (CINS) degree. I only had 9 credit hours until I reached my Maximum Time Frame (more about that later) I could only take 9 credit hours. Which would normally be enough, unless someone else is paying for it, and my classes where being paid for again this semester. This would be the last semester that was paid for, for two reasons. The first one because the scholarship was due to end after two years, and second because I reached the maximum time frame.

 The Maximum Time Frame says you cannot take more than 150% of credits needed for a degree. Since I needed 62 credit for my EECT degree 62 * 150% is 93 credit hours. This does not start over after you get a degree; this is for all of your time at Ivy Tech. What they are trying to do is keep people from getting financial aid, by just keep getting degrees. But they allow 30 credit hours of developmental coursework to be excluded. Developmental coursework are classes you need to bring you up to college level classes. Which is fine, but they should just change the limit to 200%, if I was going to cheat the system, would I not just test low so I could get my 30 extra hours. Plus they do not take into consideration who paid for the classes. I paid for the first five semesters myself, $4,114.25 (37 credit hours) and those count against me.

Classes:

CINS 125          Database Design and Management (Wednesday 1:00-3:50)

This was an interesting class, because I use databases all of the time, and even create them, I do not use SQL for either. I need to learn SQL since it is used for accessing and creating databases on a lot of other systems, and can even be used on the AS400, but does not have to be used.  

We used both Microsoft access and MySQL. This was good, since I need to become familiar with both of them. Access because it is a Microsoft product and no matter how good or bad they are people use them just because they are a Microsoft product. And MySQL because it is an open source SQL engine that follows the standards of SQL. Using MySql is different from most of the other CINS125 classes, so I am glad I took this one.

The concepts used in this class where not hard for me, but I had to get used to the syntax of SQL, and that took a little bit of work.

The instructor was a no-nonsense type of instructor. He did not give you anything you had to earn it. I think he did grade a little hard on some of the work. (But that might just be me, because I think the Java instructor did also.) He wanted you to learn the concepts about Databases and even added a review session, and dropped the paper (yeah) we were supposed to have written.

CINS 136          Introduction to Java Programming (Online Lawrenceburg-K2)

This was a slow paced class, and would make a good summer class. We read a chapter one week and did the work the next week. We learned Java applications and Java applets, the difference is applications run from your PC and applets run from a web browser.

Since I know programming the concepts were not hard, but Java is weird in that it runs on so many devices which means it runs on different operating systems. And since the devices can have small screens or large screens you do not just place controls (buttons, etc.) where you want them, you have to use layout managers, which I hate and could not get to work like I wanted them to work and look. 

CINS 237       Advance Visual Basic Programming (Online Muncie-F1)

This was the first class that did not use a standard text book, it used a book anyone might buy and use to learn to program visual basic.

Since it was an advance class we had to interact with features outside the standard self-contained program. Like Microsoft sequel sever and a web service that provided weather information, neither of which worked like it was supposed to work the first time. The Microsoft sequael server I did get to work by Goggling my problems, but the web service was free service that did not look like it as being maintained, so for that one the assignment was changed

And it was not terribly advanced; we did learn some new features that you would use frequently in a business environment.

Graduation

I walked in graduated after the end of this semester.  My official graduation date is December 15 2012, but they only hold graduation once a year. It is long and a little boring, but I am glad I did it. Since most people go to Ivy Tech on their own schedule you do not graduate with everyone you meet in the classes you take. More people graduated last year that I had in classes than this year; I did have everyone that graduated this year in a class except one. And a couple of people did not show up. There were 11 graduating from EECT this year.

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