I'm giggling to myself about the nerdy joke in the title of today's blog, if you get it I applaud your nerdy-ness and if you don't get it, good for you, you're probably leading a normal life. How is your summer? Over already? That's too bad, classes for us don't start till September 7th. :)
My favorite artist, Jack Johnson, came to Indy. You better believe I was there!
I'm working on my last week as a full-time intern at my office before I take two weeks off for a (very short) trip home and RA training. I've had plenty of time this summer to perfect my nerdom and for that, I entitled my entry. It's been a interesting couple of months playing grown-up in a real office in a real office building with real live, working adults. I took a week off in July to volunteer my time for a middle school church camp in Liberty Co., went on a fourth of July trip to Tennessee to visit my boyfriend and his family, and I've taken assorted trips to visit friends and even a four day stay at home in Indy. But besides that this summer's been about working and learning what it's like to be a programmer.
Chi Rho II at Camp WaKon Da Ho
The dynamics in our office and interesting, we have a fair amount of Transy Alumni, a scattering of Centre folks, and a decent showing from UK and other bigger schools. The other intern, Josh, is a UK student and we have had some fun comparing the programs at our respective schools. At UK, the computer science department is in the College of Engineering so Josh has to take a lot more courses in math and other sciences, his schedule was basically laid out for him except for the introductory courses he got to take in the beginning. Transy's coursework is not so cut and dry. True, we do have to take up to Calculus I (and we're encouraged to take as much math as we can) and a natural science course but in my comparisons with Josh, I've noticed that I get to take a lot of courses that I'm really interested to take that may not be traditionally thought to have much to do with computer science.
I'm really excited for my course load this year because I only have two more cs and three more Spanish courses to take to complete my majors so I have quite a bit of wiggle room to take courses outside of my requirements. Prime example? I get to take my first visual art class since elementary school, Photography! I was jabbering about it and why I thought it was important to take the course to Josh and he said, (and I quote) "You're such a liberal arts student." That made me smile from ear to ear; mission accomplished, operation college = success.
If you've researched very much about Transy, you may understand my excitement and if you haven't you should check out our Mission and Goals. My favorite part is "[Transy] encourages the free search for knowledge and understanding drawn from the natural and social sciences, the humanities, and the arts. By so doing, the College strives to empower students to develop lifelong habits of learning and intelligent, respectful discussion." Some people go to college looking for vocational training and kudos to them, but I know in my college search I was being a little more selfish. You see, I'm addicted to learning, not any one subject or school of thought but any and everything. When I found out that I could major in physics but take upper-level classes in communication, sing in the choir and still have time to hang out with friends, I was so excited. Don't get me wrong, it's not for everyone but for those knowledge junkies out there, step on up.
Right off the bat Transy hits you with something different, your first year you (and all of the other students in your class) take a course called "Foundations of Liberal Arts" (FLA, pronounced"flaw.") The website has a really good description of both sections but the importance to your Transy career is that it sets the expectations that the faculty have for in-depth discussions, no matter what kind of course you're in from chemistry to theater, you're expected to be able to analyse and bring original thoughts to class discussions and projects. It sure made my calculus classes interesting when we were assigned writing assignments and asked to discuss why certain theorems are accepted.
A really cute picture of me and my dear FLA I Book, it's specially made by the faculty to include all sorts of different authors, perspectives and writing styles.
I'll leave you with this, at Transy you don't learn things in only one way. You get the opportunity to explore all sorts of different worlds of knowledge in all sorts of different manners. You're not lectured at by your professors but you're in constant dialog with them.
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