The lack of extra tiredness

This Friday, the 24th of January 2014, there is a huge hackathon (programming competition where individuals and teams go and try to create the best program they can from scratch) going on known as HackTech. This competition has people coming in from all over the country to try and create the best program in the time constraint of 36 hours. The competition begins at 11 PM on Friday, continues all the way through Saturday, and ends at 11 AM on Sunday. Sleep is optional during this period and those who stay up are usually considered to have better chances at succeeding. Prizes are usually given out to the teams or individuals with the best programs and can range from credit to websites like Amazon to straight up cash prizes. Along with that, there's usually some sort of sticker that participants can put on their laptops to signify that they participated in a certain competition and food is always provided for those who need it. I think I already described my last two experiences with hackathons and how I enjoy them for a period of time while I'm at the events, but don't look forward to them or want to look back at them, but this one is different. 36 hours straight is longer than any other competition I've done and I have no intention of dying of fatigue after a programming competition. That would just be embarrassing, I feel. I enjoy programming to an extent, and I don't feel like I'm terrible at it, although when I don't have any ideas what I am doing with a program, it becomes a bit of a different story, I at least have a basic understanding of programming concepts. These competitions are a too intense for me, though. I can't handle the lack of sleep and I don't know how other people can. Perhaps if they're out of college or out of school, then I can understand because sometimes it's possible to just put down a vacation and rest after the hackathon, but having to go to class after staying up so long programming sounds ridiculous to me. That being said, I was initially planning to go to this event with my roommate and some other people from school, but my roommate just got sick yesterday... YES!

I apologize to my roommate, but I really didn't want to go to this hackathon and his sickness gave me an excuse not to go. Of course, I'm a bit sick as well, but it's not really enough to warrant missing a hackathon. I really should consider just taking programming classes or looking at videos online, but I'm just lazy, short on time, and forgetful. For realz, though, I might just try and learn something like C# this summer... or try to properly learn C++ and Java... Depends on the amount of free time I have.

I'm having serious worries about my grades this semester... I know that none but the business class count towards any of the information that I'll try and put on a resume, but it still would be nice to be able to look at an acceptable GPA by the end of the year. I MUST WRITE QUICKLY, REVISE WELL AND PLENTY, AND GET DUH A IN MY GE AND WRITING CLASSES! With luck, writing about ethnicity and film may not be too bad.

-Sam Rho

Down with the Sickness

Wassup Blogger...

It's been a while...

I've been here at USC only about a week and already I'm sick again... I feel like this rapid change of climate is hard for me to adapt to, which could be rather unfortunate in the future. Not being able to adapt to new environments is rather unfortunate, but I'll manage. Other than this cold (runny, raw nose, phlegm-filled throat, and slight headaches and all) I've been enjoying being back in LA. Honestly, as much as I enjoyed quality time with family and friends, I really enjoy being in LA with many things to do as well as the knowledge that there are always classes with much homework to do. I'm not sure if that last part is really that great, but it's a nice motivator for me to get up and be productive.

This semester is 5 classes, which is just as many as last semester, but these are a bit more challenging. None of these classes are towards my major GPA, which is nice, I guess, I don't have to worry too much, but I still feel like I should at least try to keep these grades up. I know that it's going to be nearly impossible to keep my grades at all A's, but I really want to try. These classes are all incredibly time-consuming, which is annoying, but it's the schedule that I've created for myself: Writing 140 (This class is literally comprised of 5 essays that are all graded for a comprehensive test of writing skills. In theory, it's supposed to help increase writing skills, but I'm pretty sure people who can't write well rarely ever get better. I've never been good at writing essays, so this is going to really hurt my GPA. This was a required class, of course, every student is forced to take this and there's no way I would take a class like this recreationally), Exploring Ethnicity through Film (We watch movies and write papers... This is going to be very bad because watching movies take up time and if I don't get everything down about the movie in one go, it takes double the time... so much note-taking! A required class which will, in theory, help me also learn about accepting diversity... or something like that), Differential Equations (Normally, I wouldn't really be too worried about any math class, but I managed to get a bad professor again. It's rather unfortunate, but I'll survive and try to learn things either from the book or from another, better professor. Apparently, this material might be important for my major, so I may need to actually utilize office hours, the TA, and the Math Center at USC), Physics: Mechanics and Thermodynamics (Thanks to Burton, I might have a chance to do alright in this class, but according to the professor, even those students who have taken AP Physics before have a harder time later in the semester. Once again, I might have to utilize SI sessions and office hours to do well), and an Economics class (Which may or may not be incredibly time consuming, depending on how much information I need to retain from reading the Wall Street Journal every day...). Anyway, despite the annoyance of not taking any classes truly pertaining to my major this year, I'm pretty excited to take on another semester. I hope that I don't get too horribly owned by all these classes.

As I look at my schedule, the only classes I really feel are necessary are Economics, Differential Equations, and maybe physics. I watched a "Draw My Life" video today and the author's comments about the general education system in college really resonated with me...

Stuff about college goes down around 12:10

Maybe I'm just lazy and want to be an idiot who isn't well rounded. Perhaps my goal in life has been to not know anything about European history or writing about film. Or maybe I'm just really excited to actually go deeper into my major and actually learn about Electrical Engineering to actually see if I'm truly interested in the major. Whatever it is, I feel like GE courses at USC or any college, for that matter, are just annoying... But I'm just a freshman. The fact that I started a sentence with a conjunction and that I used so many ellipses might explain why they still have these classes. Whatever, I guess I'll just deal with it like other college students and accept whatever GPA I get after everything.

-Sam Rho