SwimFinsSF

Friday Five – August 29th

Friday five time again – don’t know why I like these so much – probably cuz it gives me something to write about when i’m not feelin clever

1. Are you going to school this year?
Nope.

2. If yes, where are you going (high school, college, etc.)? If no, when did you graduate?
Got my degree from CU December of 1992… Moved out here right after that to start work and been doin that ever sense

3. What are/were your favorite school subjects?
Favorite subjects in high school were my music courses. Orchestra, Marching Band, and Jazz band. Also really enjoyed Yearbook (yes – at my high school that was a class). The rest of my classes in High School bored me for the most part.

At CU Marching Band was still on the list but my software classes were on there too. LOVED my Data Structures class – largely because the professor kicked my ASS – Evi Nemeth. Most people HATED that class but I loved it and to this day its THE class that had the most relevance to what I do today. She would have us design a library implementing some particular data structure and then she would write a test harness that would beat the crap out of the library. Almost no one could survive her tests – myself included – but its pretty much exactly what every software engineer need so know..

4. What are/were your least favorite school subjects?
English in high school – I’m a REALLY slow reader and had a REALLY difficult time staying on top of the reading, let alone understanding the symbolism and all that crap. My writing skills were also pretty piss poor too (in case you haven’t already figured that out)

Semiconductor theory in college – It was REALLY math intensive and I had a hard time convincing myself I cared since I knew I wanted to be doing software for a living.

5. Have you ever had a favorite teacher? Why was he/she a favorite?
Mrs. Mitchell and Mr. Schmenk in High School – Both english teachers. Probably my favorite because they went out of their way to make the reading interesting and to be sure that everyone in the class was involved and interested… I learned a TON from those two.

Prof Nemeth and Prof Ravenel in College. Prof Nemeth for the reasons above and Prof Ravenel because she seemed to be one of the VERY FEW professors I ran into in college that seemed to care about teaching. She would come in on weekends and evenings to help her students if they were stuck and didn’t seem to be 100% research focussed like all the other engineering professors. (Didn’t hurt that she taught my software architecture class either – senior software project was FUN)