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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Ninth Semester

My Ninth semester (Fall 2012)

And it would be the final semester needed for the EECT classes. I only needed two classes for the EECT associates degree, but I took five classes, since I had a scholarship paying for my classes. I still want to take the class that covers solar and wind power.  Five classes is a new record for classes in one semester for me. But four over the summer was a lot more work, since it was eight weeks versus sixteen weeks.

 Only one of my classes was online this semester, but I had the same teacher for the two EECT classes, which made it a lot nicer than the other online classes I took over the summer.

 

Classes:

EECT 140      Networking (Monday 6:00-9:50)

Before this class I would have said I knew networking very well. But this class went into a level of detail that I have never dealt with, and that is the OSI model levels. The professor was Joshua Johanan. I had him for three classes this semester. He teaches his classes a lot like online classes, which I do not mind, so there is very little paper; homework, quizzes, and test are done online. Some of the questions were still fill in the blank and essay type questions.

EECT 232      Advance Computer Troubleshooting (Thursday 6:00-9:50)

This class was continuation of the spring semester’s computer troubleshooting. It was the same professor Joshua Johanan. The book was the same book; it was the blue sections for this class. So some of the chapters were ones we already covered, but now it was more in depth. 

There was nothing too earth shattering in this class, it covered windows XP and Vista. And it pretty much just proved windows is not that great at helping you figure out what is wrong. Either it fixes itself (getting new drivers or software updates) or you are on your own to try whatever you can to get it working. 

CINS 137       Visual Basic Programming (Tuesday and Thursday 4:00-5:20)

The professor for this class was Dave Bohlmann (he is supposed to start teaching EECT classes for the Spring 2013 semester). Since we used visual basic in CINS 113 one of the students thought we should go into more depth than just the tutorials from the book (Microsoft Visual Basic 2010 Reloaded, 4/e). So the professor came up with a new syllabus which included some on the other problems from the end of the chapters and some stuff that was not even in the book. Some of them were hard, such as random number generators, the one built into VB was easy, but the ones we had to code were not so easy. The other hard project was image processing, it was really interesting and I liked learning about it, but coding it was difficult, and of course after I got it done the other students were having a hard time with it and wanted it dropped, I asked for it to be extra credit. The final was also difficult, because I do not like coming up with my own projects, I did the game battleship. There also was not a lot of time to work on it, since I was working on image processing and other finals for other classes.    

We also did something totally unrelated to visual Basic. The professor was launching balloons, so I volunteered. I thought it would have been more interesting if more people would have volunteered. But very few people want to do anything they are not required to do. There were two balloon launches. And I programmed the cameras to take pictures. If you are interested in that you can Google CHDK.

CINS157        Web Site Development (Wednesday 4:00-6:45)

The professor for this class was Carrie Butler, and it was at the Elkhart campus. It covered using HTML5 to make webpages. The biggest thing was for HTML5 web browsers will be dropping plugins and new HTML5 tags will take their place. This makes sense because web browsers are running on everything now, including phones and tablets. Our mid-term was group project, which I am not too fond of group projects, but my group was pretty good, except one women never showed up or helped, but we had planned on that. The final could have been a group project, but we voted to have it an individual project. Mine looked a lot like the mid-term project, but most people did a great job on their web-sites.

CINT 108       Linux Fundamentals (Online - Warsaw)

The professor was Joshua Johanan. And I took it this semester because I would have him for other classes and could ask him questions, and I did. I had used Linux before but not Fedora, which is what we used for this class. It covered the basics, but we did have to compile a package, that was difficult, but I liked getting that experience. We also had to write some scripts, which I had not done before, but it was not that big a deal, but now I know I can write them if I need to. We also went over CRON to schedule jobs, again I had not used that.

 

Eighth Semester

My Eighth semester (Summer 2012)

This is the first semester I took four classes and it was a summer semester. If you do not have a job or other responsibilities I would think this could be done without working day and night. But I do have a job. So I would not recommend more than two classes during the summer. I was not late on any assignments, but I did work day and night.

I wanted to take all of these classes as face to face classes but three of them were canceled so I had to look for online classes. And I think that might have helped me since I could work ahead and when I had time.     

This was the first time I used software to grade what I was doing, I never used “my math lab”. It did not grade everything but it did grade a lot of my work. I do feel sorry for the electrical engineering professors. They spend a lot of time grading papers (homework and test), they earn their money.

 

Classes:

 CINS 101       Introduction to Microcomputers (Tuesday and Thursday 1:00-5:00)

I did need a code for MYITLAB. The professor was Shawn Oltz. He is normally teaching classes for pre-engineering. This classes covers the Microsoft office suite. I had worked with Excel, Word and PowerPoint before, but still learned some things. I had never used Access before but I know database design, so I learned a lot about Access itself. I did not like having software grade my test, it does not take into account you just hit the wrong key, selected to much text, and that you know what you are doing just if you did what it wanted you o do exactly like it want you to do it. It does allow for more than one way.

 
CINS 102       Information Systems Fundamentals (Online-Kokomo)

Other than the printed book and the Book that was on DVD, I did not use any other codes. The professor was Christine Stiles. I did not like the test and quizzes in this class at all. Some of the questions seemed to be worded to try and trick you. It was my lowest scoring class. It does introduce you to a lot of areas within information systems. And some of what I learned in my electronics classes helped in this class. Like how many states does a tube have? Two, why did we need to know that? I am not sure, unless it was to try and reinforce binary is used by computers.  

 CINS 113       Logic, Design and Programming (Online-Kokomo)

This class used two books but I did not need any codes, bu did need visual basic 2010 from Microsoft, which was free. The professor was Christine Stiles. This class was pretty easy for me. I have been programming since 1976 (I started in school), and doing it for a living since 1979.

CINT 106       Microcomputer Operating System (Online-Munice)

For this class I only needed one book. The professor was Christine Arthur Mahan. This class is very easy to get an A in it. And it is a very interesting class if you are a person whole likes to know the details of how and why something works the way it does what it does.