~Wednesday, April 2, 2008~
What I'm up to
Spring quarter is here! Rochester is getting warmer, the energy on campus is palatable, and I've been busy as ever. Here's a quick rundown where I stand in life right now.
First, let me jump ahead a bit. I'll be back in Washington, DC this summer for another six-month tour (this time with Viable, Inc.) And I'm going to make the most of it. Since holding down a full-time job doesn't involve the 24/7 grind that being a full-time student does, I'm going to be preparing for the GRE, researching grad schools and faculty, and generally trying to make sure I know what I'm getting into for the next 5 or 6 years of my life. (That's usually how long a PhD study is, although I don't know if I'll try for one yet.)
Predictably, I'll be shooting for a Computer Science program, hopefully with some slant towards natural language research, but I don't want to pigeonhole myself into NLP -- there are a ton of interesting problems out there, and I'd like to be able to dabble in them on a whim if I wanted to. That's why I'm doing my concentration in the theoretical aspects of computation -- I feel that'll give me a much better grounding in the fundamentals.
The good thing is, there are actually a pretty small number of classical data structures and algorithms in computer science that can be used to work on almost any problem imaginable. The more you use them, the more you start recognizing patterns or situations in real life that could be mapped to such methods. That's why I'm taking Analysis of Algorithms.
Much of the math I do in Algos is discrete, and surprisingly enough, discrete math is showing up in another one of my classes -- Philosophical Logic. This course exudes math, but the formal aspects are decidedly informal -- probably owing to the class's liberal-arts pedigree.
Proofs are done in plain English, and the textbook (actually an Xeroxed, unpublished manuscript) goes over concepts and methods in detail that would be painstaking even for a Discrete textbook. I can say with very strong certainty, though, that many of the students have already taken either a logic, math or computer science class with me. We're no strangers to the subject, nor to each other.
Even though RIT has 14,000 students, the law of six (two?) degrees still applies, and you usually see the same few people over and over in your classes, especially as you start taking upper-division stuff. It's kind of cool. I'd love to visualize my extended social network as a graph -- if I remember correctly, Facebook used to have a similiar feature, but I can't seem to find it anymore. Which brings me to my next class...
Graph Theory. Remember what I said about a lot of things in the world being projectible onto a few common data structures and algorithms? The mapping from reality to graph tickles me silly sometimes, and the ability to recognize and exploit such mappings is important to many kinds of problem solving. What's interesting is that graph theory studies the properties of graphs, while many algorithms descibe operations on graphs. You can probably tell this quarter is basically pure intellectual relish for me. (Another cool tidbit: other common data structures, the list and the tree, are just a special case of graph. Further evidence Computer Science is not just programming.)
Okay, so I've been talking about philosophy, numbers and theory, all fields perceived as being the domain of academicans with the luxury of having to do little else but think. Well, I'll argue for the applicability of graphs and algorithms any day, but I'm trying not to lose sight of the big picture -- economic advantage, and ultimately, profit. (Why pay anyone to write code otherwise? There wouldnt be much of a job market for me if software didn't add value to an organization.)
My budding interest in stock-trading led me to take an economics class last fall, and I wanted to continue in that spirit. Instead of taking macroeconomics, I did something that should hit closer to home -- I'm taking Managing Innovation and Technology. In a class of 30 management majors, I'm the lone computer scientist. This may be brash, youthful optimism, but I think having a solid background in the technical fundamentals goes a long way in planning and executing a project that's reliant on a technological strategy, not to mention the benefit of immediate respect from your coworkers or subordinates -- particularly the scientists, engineers and knowledge workers that actually bring your project to life.
I'm not graduating this year, but the long term has been weighing heavily on me lately, and I'm really trying to prepare the best I can. Like many of my peers at RIT, but I feel like I'm standing on a precipice with the rest of my life spread out before me -- all I need to do is scope out the next peak that looks good, and head for it.
Reader Questions
Question
Hi, it was a pleasure reading your blog for the last couple of days. You're a very bright guy especially for being hard-of-hearing. I'm also a hard-of-hearing student studying Computer Science at my high school. The classes I'm taking there are C++, Calculus, and Honor Physics. I want to take the liberty of asking you this question: how is life as a hard-of-hearing student at the computer science department doing? You've never really mentioned about the advantages and the disadvantages.
- Franklin
Answer
I'm stone cold deaf, not hard of hearing. Judging my hearing status from the blog is like trying to tell an author's gender by reading a sample of their work -- kinda hard to do. (That's actually something I've always wondered about, but I digress...)
I don't think there are really any intrinsic pros or cons to being a hearing impaired CS student. Any advantages or disadvantages I have will be true in the general case -- for instance, I love writing code in Java Wally's (our wonderful library coffeeshop), while nobody I know can get any serious work done there, probably because of the noise or all the people coming and going. I also write all my philosophy papers there, so it's not just CS.
I'll be frank though, part of the reason why I picked CS was because I didn't have to deal with people as much as other fields, so my deafness isn't as much of an obstacle. The major probably suits my introverted nature even better, though -- so it's all good. Glad you're considering CS, this field really needs more reppin' from our type!
- Josh
Question
hey josh-i was reading your blog and i think it is interesting. i actually ended up here from a work assignment but i wondered if you might be able to help me. I have a pretty simple question. I run the customer service part of the welfare dept in Massachusetts and I need to know what if anything do we need to have to help are customers who are deaf and a list of the major ways deaf people use a phone center and their friends. Is texting the number one way or is it video relay. does anyone fax or use tty. I hope I am not bothering you with this stuff. I am going to keep Reading your blog.Thanks,Paul
- paul Bowman
Answer
I'd say it depends on what the person is trying to do -- if I need to send a quick message to my friends, or ask them something, I'll almost always page/text them. For longer, drawn-out conversations, videophoning between deaf people is rapidly becoming the norm. Speaking of the relay, I'm not much of a VRS user myself, but I know a lot of people who swear by it, but again it depends -- those people will usually fall back to text-based relay of some sort (IM, web, tty) if they need to be really precise in what they're trying to say, or if they'll be on hold, or whatever.
Glad you're enjoying the blog!
- Josh
Question
Hi, I'm a sophmore at University High School.I would like to be either Architecture or anything related to Computer.Are they available at Rit?Kathy Maxwell said you would be a good person to ask about RIT.Thank You
- Carlos Salazar
Answer
I'm sure there's a petition circulating on campus somewhere to start up an architecture program -- I know a lot of people who would be interested, but unfortunately we don't have anything like that here. The closest I can think of is a degree in Civil Engineering Technology, which is something altogether different.
As for computers, we have a ton of computing-related majors -- as a matter of fact, we have a whole college dedicated to it! www.rit.edu/~gccis/ -- four departments, 20 degree/certificate programs. I'm sure there's something here for you!
Enjoy Uni while it lasts!
Josh
- Josh
Question
How has it been for you, coming from Irvine, being able to adjust to the weather in NY? I'm from Los Angeles and I'll be starting at the school in the Fall. I'm not much of a cold weather person, so I was wondering if you had any adjusting-to-the-weather suggestions? Thanks!
- Samantha
Answer
Just because it's sunny outside doesn't mean it's warm -- I learned that the hard way. Otherwise, you learn to live with it -- the first couple years were rough, but if you bundle up and keep busy, you don't think about the weather too much. I've since stopped complaining, since there's really nothing you can do except roll with the punches. Winter really makes you appreciate the fall and spring, and when they do roll around, things really feel fresh and you forget all about the snow, ice and wind.
The again, I was just back home in SoCal for the weekend -- every time I visit, I ask myself what the heck I'm doing in the Roc. But when I come back, it's business as usual. Although, when it rains... *mutters*
- Josh
