Well the last thing that I have to do before submitted my application is write a Goal Statement essay. As this moves along I'll be posting...I guess you could call them drafts here and I'm expecting that you all will offer comments upon them.
For now I will post the Guidelines:
Applicants are asked to provide a 3 - 4 page, double-spaced personal statement which includes the following:
* Why do you want to undertake graduate work?
* What do you expect to derive from your program of study?
* If you have a concentration in mind, briefly outline your interests in this area.
* What do you expect to contribute as a student and subsequently as a member of the profession?
Sunday, July 12, 2009
Monday, July 6, 2009
The Chapter Of Me at the CWT
Well today as many of you probably know I went to talk to Prof. Bostian about working for him this summer. Here is what I found out.
I will being working for Dr. Bostian starting pretty much now. He will be paying $11.25 an hour, at least for the summer/until he gets more funding, for a maximum of 20 hours per week. Right now my tasks are to get as up to speed on Cognitive Radios as I can. This includes mostly becoming an expert at GNU Radio and reading an information package he gave me.
Dr. Bostian's stated goals for me and the other two undergrads he is taking on are to experience the life of a Graduate Student and to become familiar with the workings of his lab so we can take over when we become grad students.
Pretty darn cool. I know both of the other undergrads I'd be working with-one better than the other. I have my own spot in Bostian's lab, well right now it's temporary but I'll be upgrading as space becomes available.
I'm fairly excited-even if it does mean that I have to change the operating system on my computer again...
I will being working for Dr. Bostian starting pretty much now. He will be paying $11.25 an hour, at least for the summer/until he gets more funding, for a maximum of 20 hours per week. Right now my tasks are to get as up to speed on Cognitive Radios as I can. This includes mostly becoming an expert at GNU Radio and reading an information package he gave me.
Dr. Bostian's stated goals for me and the other two undergrads he is taking on are to experience the life of a Graduate Student and to become familiar with the workings of his lab so we can take over when we become grad students.
Pretty darn cool. I know both of the other undergrads I'd be working with-one better than the other. I have my own spot in Bostian's lab, well right now it's temporary but I'll be upgrading as space becomes available.
I'm fairly excited-even if it does mean that I have to change the operating system on my computer again...
Monday, June 8, 2009
And Now for Something Completely different
Well, I've taken further advantage of the unlimited text messages I have with this phone to set up mobile posting to this blog from my phone.
But now for something completely different.
I'm reading this book called Dreaming in Code by Scott Rosenberg. It was highly recommended by Prof. Bostain. So far I'm more than half way through and it's really interesting but definitely for a more computer savy/interested reader. It's a chronicle of the development of a program call Chandler that's supposed to provide a flexible solution to storing and sharing information on a computer. In truth though it's more about the perils related to ambitious programing projects.
It highlights many of the things that you wouldn't necessarily think of as problematic when it comes to software. The book points out interesting bits like Brook's law which tells us that software projects only slow down when we throw more labor at the problem; definitely the sort thing that is good to remember.
Anyway as I'm not finished with it yet and I don't want to write a summary of the book for you all that's all on that.
I've started to play around with python and so far it seems easy and fairly useful, but I'm running into the same problems that I always hit with programing languages and such-the documentation is too dense and I can't think of a use for it right away. I know that I seem impatience here, but I feel that if I don't start practice with a language (any kind really) I'll forget stuff about it faster than I'll learn. Maybe if I get good at python and I have plenty of thing (read as the following will never happen...) I'll write my own tutorial that teaches the language by having the user write programs as they go. Perhaps I'll spend enough time with it to do something cool, and perhaps not.
Oh well, The time has come to talk of many things: of shoes and ships and sealing-wax, of cabbages and kings, and why the sea is boiling hot and whether pigs have wings.
But now for something completely different.
I'm reading this book called Dreaming in Code by Scott Rosenberg. It was highly recommended by Prof. Bostain. So far I'm more than half way through and it's really interesting but definitely for a more computer savy/interested reader. It's a chronicle of the development of a program call Chandler that's supposed to provide a flexible solution to storing and sharing information on a computer. In truth though it's more about the perils related to ambitious programing projects.
It highlights many of the things that you wouldn't necessarily think of as problematic when it comes to software. The book points out interesting bits like Brook's law which tells us that software projects only slow down when we throw more labor at the problem; definitely the sort thing that is good to remember.
Anyway as I'm not finished with it yet and I don't want to write a summary of the book for you all that's all on that.
I've started to play around with python and so far it seems easy and fairly useful, but I'm running into the same problems that I always hit with programing languages and such-the documentation is too dense and I can't think of a use for it right away. I know that I seem impatience here, but I feel that if I don't start practice with a language (any kind really) I'll forget stuff about it faster than I'll learn. Maybe if I get good at python and I have plenty of thing (read as the following will never happen...) I'll write my own tutorial that teaches the language by having the user write programs as they go. Perhaps I'll spend enough time with it to do something cool, and perhaps not.
Oh well, The time has come to talk of many things: of shoes and ships and sealing-wax, of cabbages and kings, and why the sea is boiling hot and whether pigs have wings.
Wednesday, May 27, 2009
Monday, April 27, 2009
Actually Bored
Well, classes are winding down quickly now. Everything seems to be coming to a close and I am getting bored because I don't have the same level of homework that I did before. I guess I should enjoy it though, because I know I'm going to have plenty to keep me busy next year. Oh well. Short post today.
I had my last stat test today and it was really easy, to the point that I feel like I forgot something... Oh well I guess I'll find out soon.
I had my last stat test today and it was really easy, to the point that I feel like I forgot something... Oh well I guess I'll find out soon.
Sunday, April 19, 2009
The Big Event
Well, every year VT has a day of service called the Big Event. It basically consists of the students organizing themselves and descending on the town of Blacksburg to complete various service projects. Yesterday there were about 5,800 volunteers involved. I was part of the representation of TBP (the national honors society for engineers). We had 17 people show up and were thus assigned three projects, Pick up trash and pull weeds, rake leaves, and paint a porch. We split up into 3 groups, trash and weeds the biggest at 10 people was the one I was in. So we arrive on site, a clean little neighborhood in Blacksburg and discover that they have a path by the highway that gathers trash from the cars. It was short so most of us started on that while other people started on the pulling weeds. Well, when you get a bunch of highly motivated engineering honor students together tasks don't take that long. We quickly finished with the trash and moved on to help the weeders, again we finished quickly. There were two more jobs wait-trim a grass/bush thing-like those plants that used to be in ma's yard, and clear some drain pipes. Again we split up to conquer these tasks-I got to cut up the bush thingy. Again we quickly crushed our tasks. Then we went to help out the leave raker guys-with the added help it took maybe 5-10 minutes to finish everything. We did not go to help the painting folk because they had limited brushes. All told though I left the apartment at 8:45 and was back and showered at 12:45-which is really cool. It is amazing how quickly a bunch of engineers can complete any task.
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