And so it began.
So, the new year is here, and of course that means another semester of school for me. I wanted to get off to a fast start in this MSCS program, and was intent to do so in the fall. Luckily my hard work paid off and I was very happy with my marks. The new semester brings two new classes - Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) and System Fundamentals (SF).
The SOA class sounds like it will be the more interesting of the two (at least to me). It's essentially about web services and the semantic web - which are terms I've heard buzzing around recently at work. Unlike the two classes I had in the fall, however, this class is a Graduate-level only class (as opposed to the upper/under classes I had in the fall).
So I wonder how much more difficult the SOA class will be since it is only grad students. One very interesting (and cool) thing about the class is that we will be reading scholarly articles on SOA every so often and then presenting what we learned to the class. That sort of ties in to my long-term goal to hopefully teach in the area, so it should at least be an interesting exercise. I don't know much else about how the class will go, so hopefully it will be fun.
The SF class is another story. It is once again an upper/under class, but this is going to be one hell of a class. First, it is a required class for the MS, so I have no other recourse but to take. In general, the premise of the class is to learn about the systems we use, their architecture and their hardware. The professor is a PhD candidate in CS at Maryland, and is obviously very excited about the information. In fact, he is so excited about it, I think about half the class dropped after the first week of class. I completely believe this guy knows his stuff, but we have no syllabus yet, he goes 100 mph in class, and his first homework assignment was more than I ever had as an undergrad. He reminds me of a friend of mine (and some people I've worked with) who are completely anti-windows, and that was basically the first thing he told us on the first night. Right then and there I knew I was in for it.
For me it is a problem of motivation. I don't particularily care what is in my computer. Nor do I care how it works. What I are about is that it does work. I'll leave the internal stuff to the systems and electrical engineers - it isn't for me. Unfortunately, it is a required course, so I'll have to struggle through it. It would be nice if they designed a Master's program with NO requirements, so you could design your own. I think required classes are quite possibly the bane of my eductional existence.
Anyway, on top of that, I've pretty much decided on the thesis course of study. I've chosen to pursue my thesis in databases. I'm working with my thesis with the professor I had for my databases class last semester, and so far the research seems interesting. My biggest concern with pursuing the thesis option is that I will not be able to identify something new or unnoticed, or I won't be able to come up with something to write about. I have a year to worry about that, though, and I suppose that leaves plenty of time to decide to stay away from the thesis.
So, it is going to be a stressful semester, but nothing I can't handle.