Have you ever set out on an adventure and then had a feeling towards the end of it that you should have documented it better? Thats exactly the feeling I have now. Which is why this blog post is a documentation of my long adventure towards becoming a Master of Science in Computer Engineering.
It all started 3 years ago with V persuading me to drop joining Infy and do my Masters. So began a long cramming session for GRE that I spoke about here and some more practice sessions for TOEFL. Then I went through the pipeline (excuse my comp. arch terminology) with the SOP-Recos-Applications stage and the Visa stage again blogged about here.
As an MS student I blogged a lot about my initial experience here and here. Somewhere in the second and third sems I got more engrossed in enjoying the experience rather than documenting it. Nevertheless I still managed to squeeze in a post on a unique exam experience here. But I didn't write a word about the hunt that occupied the largest part of my MS time - JOB SEARCH! I intend to blog about it soon but not in this post :)
If you are wondering whether this post is over yet, I'll say it isn't. Like I mentioned before, I wished I'd documented my MS experiences better. Fortunately I had this realization at the beginning of my last sem here. So the purpose of this post is to give you a link to my experiences in my last sem at UFL.
Thursday, December 17, 2009
...and make it long again
So Fall 09 began with DSNEP. You need to refer to its definition and inauguration here. But I soon discovered that I was good at keeping up with the plan but bad at regularly blogging about it. So my solution to this? Make a folder on your laptop and keep dumping stuff in it to record DSNEP experiences. Then blog about it (like I'm doing now) all at once!
Here is then a list of things inspired by DSNEP that I did in Fall 09.
Baby Gator
I like babies. I mean everyone does but I reallyy think they are "cho chweet!" So when I found out about Baby Gator last summer while hunting for an oncampus job I put it down in my to-do list. No better time than this Fall to volunteer for it.
After a background check letter from the Gainesville Sheriff's office, 3 recos - from Vamsi, Girish and Nikhil (well they wanted from some ppl who could vouch for my baby-sitting skills) and a bunch of paperwork later, I started as a volunteer for kids less than a year of age codenamed the Pompanos :) It was fun playing with the kids, feeding them and doing some playschool activities with them.
I won't go into the details but one particular incident I remember well. The toddlers were doing a project where they had to stick cotton balls on a drawing to make sheep. One of the kids got some glue on his hand and a cotton ball stuck to it. He tried shaking his hand to get it off - no luck. Then tried wiping it down the front of his t-shirt - still no luck. Then tried pulling it off with his other hand (which also had glue) - uh oh now the cotton is on both hands. Then he got scared of the fluffy white thing on his hands and out come the tears! I helped him get it off with a wet cloth but it was fun to watch his efforts first :P
Pottery
Another thing on my to-do list inspired by Swati was the pottery leisure course. UF offers Leisure Courses for completely vellah, semi vellah and busy ppl. Me falling in the second category this sem opted for the pottery course.
It was fun to make pots of various shapes from wet clay and paint them. Most looked like they were remains from an archeological excavation but there were some good ones too!
Google Ambassador
After an internship in Google and becoming a fulltime Googler, I wanted to do something to bring Google at UF. Google's Campus Ambassador Program was a great way to do that! So teaming up with Laura and Jocelyn, I set out to promote Google to fellow Gators!
We had an event to introduce ppl to Wave and gave out Wave invites to the attendees.
We had a Wave Hackathon as well where participants got to design their own Wave Robots. Check out the cool entries we received here and here if you have a Wave account. If you don't - well post a comment here asking for one and I'll send you an invite :)
And then there was the big Docs survey and give-away! (Its still live if you wanna win a bottle :) ) Some lucky souls who filled out our survey got Docs bottles. Publicizing it by mailing tons of mailing lists was fun! And oh yes... while we are at the publicity part - don't forget to join out Facebook Group (Google Gators) and our Google Group if you are a Gator and want free Google stuff!
Some Trips
Then I had 2 long trips this sem. One that I took to NY filled with Diwali celebrations, shopping, lots of delicious Indian food and studies!
And another that V took to Gainesville filled with a visit to KSC, a Gator Nite to remember and an awesome day at Lake Wauburg! And oh yes a great Halloween night with a costume that scare my roomie into locking herself in the bathroom :P
An Enjoyable Course
I also took a fun course this sem - Computer Graphics. Totally unexpected and not what I had planned to study, the best part of this course was that it was interesting to non-CS people as well. You don't have to be a geek to enjoy playing around with my homeworks. Here are some videos I took of my homeworks in action! Each was an interactive graphics application.
Video1 Video 2 and Video 3
And some more activities...
If all of the above didn't convince you that I had a great sem, then here is some more. There was the Noogler treat I gave for getting a fulltime at Google. And then there was the Thanksgiving potluck we had with lots of delicious food and many friends! And lastly an idle lazy rainy day with no work to do and lots of movies to watch.
This space reserved for Graduation!
Like they say "its not over until you say so!" The sem isn't over yet and there is one last event left to celebrate before I conclude my adventures in Gainesville. Will fill the details in here after Dec. 18! Till then preparing for yet another series of adventures......
Here is then a list of things inspired by DSNEP that I did in Fall 09.
Baby Gator
I like babies. I mean everyone does but I reallyy think they are "cho chweet!" So when I found out about Baby Gator last summer while hunting for an oncampus job I put it down in my to-do list. No better time than this Fall to volunteer for it.
After a background check letter from the Gainesville Sheriff's office, 3 recos - from Vamsi, Girish and Nikhil (well they wanted from some ppl who could vouch for my baby-sitting skills) and a bunch of paperwork later, I started as a volunteer for kids less than a year of age codenamed the Pompanos :) It was fun playing with the kids, feeding them and doing some playschool activities with them.
I won't go into the details but one particular incident I remember well. The toddlers were doing a project where they had to stick cotton balls on a drawing to make sheep. One of the kids got some glue on his hand and a cotton ball stuck to it. He tried shaking his hand to get it off - no luck. Then tried wiping it down the front of his t-shirt - still no luck. Then tried pulling it off with his other hand (which also had glue) - uh oh now the cotton is on both hands. Then he got scared of the fluffy white thing on his hands and out come the tears! I helped him get it off with a wet cloth but it was fun to watch his efforts first :P
Pottery
Another thing on my to-do list inspired by Swati was the pottery leisure course. UF offers Leisure Courses for completely vellah, semi vellah and busy ppl. Me falling in the second category this sem opted for the pottery course.It was fun to make pots of various shapes from wet clay and paint them. Most looked like they were remains from an archeological excavation but there were some good ones too!
Google Ambassador
After an internship in Google and becoming a fulltime Googler, I wanted to do something to bring Google at UF. Google's Campus Ambassador Program was a great way to do that! So teaming up with Laura and Jocelyn, I set out to promote Google to fellow Gators!
We had an event to introduce ppl to Wave and gave out Wave invites to the attendees.
We had a Wave Hackathon as well where participants got to design their own Wave Robots. Check out the cool entries we received here and here if you have a Wave account. If you don't - well post a comment here asking for one and I'll send you an invite :)
And then there was the big Docs survey and give-away! (Its still live if you wanna win a bottle :) ) Some lucky souls who filled out our survey got Docs bottles. Publicizing it by mailing tons of mailing lists was fun! And oh yes... while we are at the publicity part - don't forget to join out Facebook Group (Google Gators) and our Google Group if you are a Gator and want free Google stuff!
Some Trips
Then I had 2 long trips this sem. One that I took to NY filled with Diwali celebrations, shopping, lots of delicious Indian food and studies!
And another that V took to Gainesville filled with a visit to KSC, a Gator Nite to remember and an awesome day at Lake Wauburg! And oh yes a great Halloween night with a costume that scare my roomie into locking herself in the bathroom :P
An Enjoyable Course
I also took a fun course this sem - Computer Graphics. Totally unexpected and not what I had planned to study, the best part of this course was that it was interesting to non-CS people as well. You don't have to be a geek to enjoy playing around with my homeworks. Here are some videos I took of my homeworks in action! Each was an interactive graphics application.
Video1 Video 2 and Video 3
And some more activities...
This space reserved for Graduation!
Like they say "its not over until you say so!" The sem isn't over yet and there is one last event left to celebrate before I conclude my adventures in Gainesville. Will fill the details in here after Dec. 18! Till then preparing for yet another series of adventures......
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