Checksum Arcanius

Here is my projected schedule, so far. Still to be determined is the CSE 490 I lab time, since the current options both conflict with the Bioen 303 lecture. However, there appears to be a good chance that this conflict will be resolved.

My Birthday Weekend was quite fun and packed. As is often the case, there was no shcool on my birthday due to the Veteran’s Day holiday. So, I woke up late, did lunch and real-estate with my mom, then went to a DotA LAN party. I had never played DotA before, but with some guidance I found it to be quite a lot of fun. Next, I went to dinner with Courtney, roommate Dan, and Natalie, then it was off to bowling with the regular crew of Jon, Shai, and Theo. that made for quite a full day, but the weekend was just beginning. Saturday, I reviewed some more real estate, then went to the Huskies game (an ugly, terrible 20-3 loss to Stanford) before buying a mask and ending up at former roommate Kunlun’s housewarming party. I attended with Maria; the conversation was excellent and a good time was had despite having to rescue our masks from a couple of drunk girls. That concluded Saturday.

Sunday, it was back to work — consisting primarily of many more hours on the current Bioengineering Physiology lab. I then watched the end of the Seahawks game, played some pool with Maura at her place, then headed to my parent’s for a wonderful Sunday dinner and signing of a contract on some real estate (which seemed to be a common weekend theme). After dinner, I think I’ve conclusively verified a sneaking suspicion of mine: I am indeed allergic to chicken. I love the stuff, but my throat constricts and I feel generally crappy after eating it, a state which did not help when I got back to working on the BioE lab at 9:00. We ended — lab still not quite complete — at about 1:00am.

Today, I woke up late and missed my Bioengineering classes. I blame lack of sleep and chicken. Hopefully I’ll get back on track for the rest of the week — I don’t want to suffer too much from post-midterm slacking off. Later today there is a co-rec football game that coincides directly with the middle of a BioEngineering lab. If I can swing it, I will be missing the middle hour of lab to play in the game. I really want one of those t-shirts!

When I bike to campus and back, I don’t wear a helmet. This is a conscious choice — I’m aware of the risks and I own a helmet. But I like the freedom of riding without a helmet. Helmets feel stifling, and I probably wouldn’t bike much if I actually had to wear one. This was the one thing I thought I liked about Seattle — my understanding until recently was that although King County had an ordinance requiring helmets, Seattle had an exemption. I thought that was just grand, and often wished that my hometown, Bellevue, would have also exempted the city limits. However, I just learned that in 2003, Seattle made bicycle helmets mandatory. So, officially, there is no longer anything for me to like about Seattle. That is unfortunate.

More unfortunate is the UW’s new campus safety campaign, “Look Up!” I ride a bike for convenience — so when the UW implements new rules that make biking to class less convenient, that makes me unhappy, and, honestly, less liekly to bike at all. They claim it is for safety — but I have never hit or endangered anyone on campus, and I only rarely endanger my own life while biking around campus. Let me state for the record that I would not be opposed to a fine or some other punishment for running into somebody. What I am opposed to is being punished for what someone else may (or may not) have done at some point in the past. When I bike I am conscious of others, and I avoid hitting them — I think that is all I should be required to do.

Instead, I am now told I will have to frequently dismount at certain places on campus (“whenever pedestrians are present,” which means always), I am supposed to yield to all pedestrians and motor vehicles (except when a signal gives me a right-of-way [ie, the driver waving me by isn’t good enough]), and am given the clear message that there is no speed limit, but that “any speed deemed unreasonable is a violation.” Who decides what is unreasonable? It’s all a bunch of crap that makes riding less enjoyable. Basically, it is going to suck to ride bikes around campus for a while, until they forget about this or I find out if its easy to ride away from cops — or if its not easy, until I end up in University Jail, or wherever they put violators.

Now get this. On the next page of the pamphlet where I read the announcement of screwing-over-all-bicyclists, I read about a program designed to get more people to ride to campus, called “Ride in the Rain.” They have a competition about who rides to campus more (I ride every day), with prizes and a party at the end of the rainy season to encourage riding. Well I have some advice for these people-in-charge: maybe if you didn’t make it so inconvenient to ride, more people would ride to campus of their own accord, and you wouldn’t need a whole office full of people consuming my money to encourage me. And people wonder why education costs keep going up.

Update #2: If I switch 451 and 461 around, I can register for next quarter, and play wait & see for Spring quarter on 461. Of course, I have no current guarantee that 451 would be available Spring quarter at a workable time, so I pretty much just have to go with what I know will work for this quarter. Then, I can take 490i if they allow me, or take 233 otherwise. Taking 233 would lock me in to one schedule, while 490i would allow me to pick between 3, one of which I like better than the 1 option I would otherwise be left with. So if I end up sticking with BioE, it looks like my best choice is going to be 303, 305, 451, 490i and my backup is 303, 305, 451, 233. If I decide to go the CSE only route, I would face two pretty intense quarters (see below), but I’m pretty sure its possible. I will meet with CSE advisors soon to confirm this, so I can make a fully informed decision.

UPDATE: Hm, this may have just been decided for me — next quarter’s schedule doesn’t work out under the two-year plan…

I have been thinking a lot about my academic future once again. Frustrations with Bioengineering, and the realization that graduation this school year in just CSE is very possible, have made me consider the possibility of dropping Bioengineering and graduating in just CSE.

This is a tough choice. I worked hard to get in to Bioengineering, and I don’t want to quit just because things aren’t falling into place right now. But I also am itching for closure on this undergraduate chapter of my life. So, as my registration date of November 6th approaches, I decided to plan out both options, just to make sure that everything is lined up when I do make a choice.

The Two-Year Option (graduating in Bioengineering & Computer Engineering)

Autumn 2006 (15) (Current)
BioE 302 (4) — Introduction to Instrumentation (BioE core)
BioE 304 (4) — Analysis of Physiological Systems (BioE core)
CSE 378 (4) — Machine Organization & Design (CSE Core)
CSE 322 (3) — Introduction to Formal Models (CSE Core)

Winter 2007 (16-17)
BioE 303 (4) — Signal Processing (BioE core)
BioE 305 (4) — Analysis of Physiological Systems & Transport (BioE core)
CSE 451 (4) — Operating Systems (CSE Core)
CSE 461 (4) — Introduction to Networks (CSE Core)
CSE 490i (4) — Neurobotics (CSE Senior Elective, BioE Senior Elective by Petition)
-or- EE 233 (5) — Circuit Theory (CE Hardware Requirement)

Spring 2007 (16)
BioE 357 (4) — Molecular & Cellular Bioengineering I (BioE Core)
BioE 481 (4) — Research & Design Fundamentals (CSE Core)
CSE 451 (4) — Operating Systems (CSE Core)
CSE 461 (4) — Introduction to Networks (CSE Core)
CSE 466 (4) — Software for Embedded Systems (CE Hardware Requirement)

Summer 2007
Quit Job, Find Bioengineering Research Labratory

Autumn 2007 (16)
BioE 482 (4) — Senior Capstone Research/Design (BioE Core)
BioC 405 (3) — Introduction to Biochemistry (BioE Requirement)
CSE 467 (4) — Advanced Digital Design (CE Hardware Requirement)
EE 233 (5) — Circuit Theory (CE Hardware Requirement)

Winter 2008 (15)
BioE 482 (4) — Senior Capstone Research/Design (BioE Core)
BioE 470 (4) — Systems Engineering & E-Medicine (BioE Senior Elective)
BioE 490 (3) — Biomaterials (BioE Senior Elective)
CSE 403 (4) — Software Engineering (CE Senior Elective)

Spring 2008 (16)
BioE 455 (4) — BioMEMS (BioE Senior Elective)
BioE 457 (4) — Molecular & Cellular Bioengineering II (BioE Senior Elective)
CSE 444 (3) — Introduction to Database Systems (CE Senior Elective)
CSE 477 (5) — Hardware Design Capstone (CE Hardware Requirement)

Graduation ver 1.0!

One-year option (Graduating in CSe only)

Winter 2007 (17)
CSE 461 (4) — Introduction to Networks (CSE Core)
CSE 466 (4) — Software for Embedded Systems (CE Hardware Requirement)
CSE 490i (4) — Neurobotics (CE Senior Elective)
EE 233 (5) — Circuit Theory (CE Hardware Requirement)

Spring 2007 (17)
CSE 403 (4) — Software Engineering (CE Senior Elective)
CSE 451 (4) — Operating Systems (CSE Core)
CSE 467 (4) — Advanced Digital Design (CE Hardware Requirement)
CSE 477 (5) — Hardware Design Capstone (CE Hardware Requirement)

Graduation ver 2.0!

Dear Ed Taylor c/o Office of Undergraduate Education,

You said you wanted to hear about my UW experiences. Here are a few:

I’m a transfer student with credits coming in from two different institutions. So when I arrived last autumn, I had a lot of work to do to make sure my credits were properly transfered over. I had to talk to many different departments and advisors, filing multiple petitions and filling out many forms. For the most part, that process worked. I got the proper transfer credit for most of my math and science classes, and that made getting a degree here at the UW much more attainable. However, along with all the courses that became a direct equivalent here at the UW were many courses which became “dead credits.” I call them this because they weigh own my transcript without serving any useful purpose. Let me give you some examples:

1) Out of high school, I attended BYU. Unlike the UW, BYU doesn’t accept college-in-high-school credit. So the calculus classes I took in high school, and recieved BCC college credit for, didn’t count at BYU. It didn’t bother me much at the time; I simply took honors calculus at BYU my first two semesters, and I was merrily on my way. However, the result now is not nearly as clean. Since the UW does accept college-in-high school credit, here, I have credit for those high school calculus classes. I also have credit from my BYU calculus classes. Only one set of these credits is useful, but I’m stuck with both.

2) During high school, I took some running start classes. But having no particular degree in mind at the time, I guess I didn’t choose them very well, since mostly they ended up showing up here as “Biol 1XX” or “Math 1XX.” When I ended up back at BCC after my time at BYU, I pursued an AAS for the Direct Transfer Agreement, and this time I ended up with credits that shows up as specific things, but mostly useless things for the degrees I happen to be pursuing.

So, I have a lot of irrelevant credits. No big deal, right? Wrong. Because every quarter I’ve been here, save one, I have had to deal with a registration hold. Each time, the hold has become progressively harder to get rid of. First, I just had to email some people to clear some things up. Then it was simply talking to an adviser at Mary Gates and getting a signature. That was my very first quarter here. At that point, I already had “too many” credits. Now, I need a signature of the college dean or an appointee. What will I need next, Mark Emmert’s signature? Then God’s?

I have a graduation plan. It is on track. I have only one year here at the UW under my belt, and yet I deal with this crap every quarter. It takes up my time that I would rather spend learning and passing classes so I can get out of here.

How about we strike a deal? You give me the option of blasting away credits that I earned elsewhere and which count for nothing. Then your mighty machine of bureaucracy stops flagging me and wasting all of our time. Everybody ends up happy, right? I don’t have “too many” meaningless credits, and you don’t have to bug me every quarter about my failure to graduate after a year at your institution.

It sounds good to me. Does it sound good to you?

~Ryan McElroy

Office of Undergraduate Education wrote:

Read the rest of this entry »

I don’t know if I’ll ever get over the first-day excitement of looking forward to everything I’m going to learn in a quarter. What I know I will get over is the unhappy transition from learning bliss to learning drudgery — the reading, studying, and writing that goes into making the grade. Two sides of the same coin, though, and overall, it seems well worth it.

After a dubiously neccesary but well-intentioned Bioengineering Junior Orientation yesterday, classes start today. It was a lot of fun to see everyone again, especially Alice, Christine, and Dennis. We yukked it up the whole time and enjoyed ourselves despite the doughy pizza and overlong soliloquies.

Afterwards, I headed home, played my last (in all likelihood) CS:S for the year, and started to fix up some dinner when I got a call from Maria, who had arrived home after work to find no food left at her sorority. So I invited her over and we enjoyed Halibut, Rice, and Corn, which was quite good in my opinion. Afterwards, she gave me a tour of her sorority (stuffed to the gills with girls — amazing!), and we walked a little around campus before calling it night.

Today is the first day of classes at the UW. My first begins at 9:30, and my last ends at 6:20. I have all four lectures today (and every M/W/F), with one break in between the two blocks, followed by a three-hour lab. Its one of those schedules that is just intense enough that I can brag about it, but doable enough that I’m not too scared (yet).

And with that, I’m off!