What did you do this past week?

This past week, I went through the biggest hill of stress I ever faced. I had my last interview with a company, final test in OOP, and the finale project of OS to finish by Saturday. I don’t know how I survived, since I went to the ER…

I went to the ER on Tuesday because of a huge load of stress and anxiety… I had heart surgery as a kid, so I thought I was getting a heart attack when anxiety hit me. I ended up staying in the ER till 5AM in the morning. Sadly enough, throughout the ER examinations and such, one of the most prominent questions I had in my mind was “How much will this cost?”. I remember resisting the impulse to call 911 and asking my roommates to drive me instead over to the hospital. Unbelievable right… It’s kind of sad that I was thinking about money over my health. Money cannot be more important than health.

On a brighter note, finishing projects and tests were really great (a huge stress reliever). And nothing is better to celebrate than to go out and eat food with friends :) If there’s one thing I’m willing to spend money on, it’s on good food. Especailly with friends.

What’s in your way?

I have a Operating Systems final on Friday. The exam will be cumlative so I need to review much of the material that I learned in the beginning of the semester. It shouldn’t be too hard if I make sure I study :P I don’t know the study style other people have, but for me, I tend to like to write everything out on a whiteboard and study it that way… The information is easily put on, and a quick erase with a dry erase marker gets you another clean canvas to work on. Hopefully that will work for the final.

OOP Class Impressions

I can’t believe it’s over. I thought the exam was probably the hardest any OOP exam could be. It really challenge all understanding of C++ concepts and working with the Object Oriented environment. I was almost unsure that I would finish it. Luckily, I was able to (though barely), but seriously… that (30 mins on the first question out of 6… and only a hour left.. pretty scary).

I really enjoy OOP. I have never had a class in programming like this, and the experience was too amazing. Being able to learn all these new software engineering aspects along with learning the little niches behind C++ and how to better improve OOD really allowed me to see the value of programming. Even though I might take a job that isn’t completely related to what I learned, I found so many parts of it that I truly learned from it. Community on Piazza (so receptive and responsive), interactive learning in paired programming, and subtle tastes of “wouldn’t you agrees” along with challenging yet fun projects really made this a worthwhile class to take. Couldn’t have been better.

Side Note: I am hoping to become a proctor for Downing’s OOP class… so this might not be the end of OOP with Downing for me :P See you possibly in January!

Sider Side Note: (one of my friends tallied up Downing’s amount of times he’s said certain phrases/words… hopefully Downing doesn’t mind these statistics being shown here)

What will you do next week?

I plan to get way more sleep. After Tuesday’s incident, I really need to keep watch of how much rest I get.

Furthermore, I plan to do Hour of Code on Tuesday, which if you guys can, you should definitely go. Teaching the next generation of coders is real, and there’s not better way to do that, then through the community you’re in.

Finally, I will be doing A LOT of studying… so I’ll see y’all in the lab, unless I end up holing up in my room.

Tip of the Week

I don’t know if you guys follow newsletters, but Hacker Newsetter has recently become one of my favorite newletters to read up on current news for programmers like you and me. The best thing about it is that there are many relatable articles to read on, github repos to test out, and fun cool projects to be informed in. Hope you enjoy it!