Yesterday, around 6pm, I finished my last project for one of my classes, meaning that I am now officially done for this semester.

It’s been one helluva semester – first time I’ve done a full-time schedule (12 credit hours) in a few years. Compound that with a baby, and the fact that three of the courses were 300-level courses, and you’ve got a formula for disaster!

This semester I had four classes:

• Organic Chemistry I (Chem 341, Lecture only)
• Distributed Computing (Info 320)
• Information Technology for Management (IIM 300)
• Linear Data Structures (CompSci 243)

By far, Organic Chem was the hardest of all of them, and I successfully pulled off a B+ in that class. While I wouldn’t have minded an A-grade, I am completely happy with a high B. Distributed Computing & Linear Data structures were both somewhat difficult — in the former I had to learn the Python scripting language on the fly (I had never used it before), which was very frustrating. In the latter, I learned Java, a really awesome object-oriented programming language. The hardest part about that class though was learning the running times for all the algorithms. O(n^2) and O(n log n) and O(2^n), it was a lot of memorization that I only half-did.

The IT for management class was basically a discussion only course. Every class, people would present topics and we all would discuss them. It was pretty interesting — it definitely made the book more entertaining.

In other development, I am now double-majoring: My Bachelor’s degree will be a General Studies degree (or as my wifey calls it, a “degree in nothing”), and I will also be getting an A.S. in Chemistry. I’m considering a minor in Biology as well. I would major in it, but I would be stuck in classes for at least another 2 or 3 years minimum waiting for the classes I need to cycle in.

I saw the degree requirements for the Biotechnology program and became very envious. Genetics? Cell biology? Sign me up! It’s unfortunate it would take me too long to complete it. I suppose I can look into that for my graduate program?

Next semester’s classload, also full-time, is:

• Organic Chemistry II (Lecture & Lab)
• Intro to Biology (a pre-req for pretty much every other bio course)
• Chemistry Topics: Protein Synthesis

Protein Synthesis should be neat – it’s my Chemistry professor that teaches it, and he’s a neat guy. He said we’ll all pick a protein and learn how to artificially create it from other base chemicals and whatnot. It’s strictly lab and should be a light workload compared to the other courses. (fingers crossed)

But for now, I’m going to enjoy a well-deserved break from school.

Tags: chemistry, computer science, organic chemistry, school