Spring 2003 Class Preview

Having completed a week's worth of classes less than two hours ago, it is time for me to register my opinions thus far on each of them. Let's hope for a much more productive semester than the last one.

ECON 270 - International Economics

Why take economics? Because I like it. This looks like an enjoyable economics class that will be light on the theory and heavy on the practical application. The professor, Dr. Horn, came with a high recommendation from Dan. I'm looking forward to learning things in this class that will allow me to argue somewhat more convincingly when disagreeing with whatever the government may be doing.

ECON 331 - Intermediate Microeconomic Theory

This looks like a challenging economics class that will be light on the practical application and heavy on the theory (hence the name). I've never been kicked out of a class before, but came close today: Dan and I don't technically meet the prerequesites for the class (a college level Calculus course), and were worried that the professor might boot us as a matter of policy. We explained the nature of the ISAT math track, and cooler heads prevailed. This class might be hard.

CS 462 - Network Programming

While I don't wish to say that what I will learn in this class is irrelevant (it's actually quite relevant, as I love to program), it wouldn't be fair to say that I'm taking it strictly for its academic value. This may be my final class with the great Dr. Bernstein, and I wouldn't miss it for anything. Perhaps Dan and I will even enhance our already insanely great Caribbean Stud Poker to allow for network play.

CS 461 - Internetworking

After thoroughly enjoying my Local Area Networks class last semester, I had high hopes for this class. After only two meetings, it hasn't lived up to them. I'm inclined to blame the presentation of the material, which to this point has strongly been focused on PowerPoint. Please, let this not be a trend that continues.

CS 345 - Software Engineering

One of the things that I look forward to doing with my life is writing software. It's fun. I enjoy it. So far, the overriding theme of this class seems to be "Your career writing software will not be fun." The whole concept of software engineering is somehow distasteful to me, so I'm not really looking forward to this.

On the bright side, the professor is both the department head (nice, because now I have a connection) and very widely traveled (he'll have some great stories). And I have a hard time saying anything bad about the first professor to ever happily give his IM name to an entire class.