Monday, December 13, 2004

Never Again... Weird.

I graduated on saturday. The fact that I'm never going to be living like this again... it hasn't really hit me yet.
* I've had the same roommate for 3.5 years, and I'm probably never going to live with him again. weird.
* I've grown accustomed to taking naps after lunch, and I'm probably never going to be able to do that again. weird.
* I'm constantly messing around on my computer when I'm supposed to be doing homework, and I'd probably get in trouble at work for doing that... so I'll probably quit doing that so much... weird.
* This list could go on for ages.

I get this weird feeling everyone now expects me to be grown up. I've got news for you... NOT GONNA HAPPEN. I'm still going to do all the stupid stuff I've been doing in college for the last 4.5 years.

Friday, December 10, 2004

Senior Capstone Poster


Senior Capstone Poster
Originally uploaded by adamb0mb.
So, I've spent a sememster working with my senior design group on this one project. To show other people what we've done, we've summed it up in this poster (its full size is actually 40"x32", for display at the U of I Engineering Expo). To read the poster, click on the thumbnail, then click on "All Sizes", then click on the biggest dimension. Its really awesome, check it out.

Wednesday, December 08, 2004

Interviewing Tips from the Master(?)

Someone asked for a few tips on interviewing. Out of the 4 '2nd level' interviews I did, I only got 1 offer, so I don't know how qualified I am to give tips... but being unqualified has never stopped me before.

  • Study Up - At the end of your interview, you will always get asked "Do you have any questions?" You know you're going to get this question... so be ready to answer it. Appeal to their love of their company... ask them about a new product that is coming out, why its so much better than anything else.
  • What to drink - Once you're at their office for an all- or half-day interview, you're going to be doing a lot of talking. DO NOT DRINK CAFFEINE. This is going to be hard, because if you're like me, you were up the whole night before because you were too excited to sleep. But coffee, soda, etc will dehydrate you, and give you cotton mouth during your interview. Which instantly leads to bad breath (and if you had coffee your breath will kill small children). Drink water, or something that isn't bad for you. At my Expedia Interview I was fighting a sore throat, so when they offered me a drink... I had some warm tea (worked like a champ).
  • Study Up - When in the courtroom, a lawyer never asks a witness a question that he/she doesn't already know the answer to. You should put yourself in a similiar situation. Know what the interviewer is going to ask you. Talk to people who have interviewed there. Before I went to my Deloitte interview, I called one of my friends from high school who interviewed for the same job in Pittsburgh. He said he was asked to do an ER diagram from Video Rental store. I got the exact same question, and was unbelievably ready for it.
  • Don't Give Up - If you think you screwed something up earlier in the interview, and are sure you're not going to give you a job anymore... it doesn't matter... keep giving 100% in the interview. A good finish can cure a bad start. At my Navair Interview, one of the guys I was interviewing with started the day off, by greeting our would-be manager with his pant's fly open. He still got an offer.
  • Study Up - They're going to spend all day trying to find an excuse to not hire you. Don't give it to them. Whats the job you're being interviewed for? Make sure you've studied everything you've ever learned about that job. Are you applying for a Consulting job with an accounting company? Go over everything you've ever heard a professor say about accounting. Go over all your old tests. An interview is the ultimate Final Exam.


And read this 2 articles, they're hilarious and really informative.
one
two

Thats all I can think of right now.

Sunday, December 05, 2004

I'm watcing you watch me...

Being the nerd that I am, I look at the logs of the people visiting my site (actually visit the site, I can't track the people that subscribe to the RSS feed). And I'd like to hear from the people that visit my site often. There are a couple people who I don't know that look at it all the time.
*Someone from Australia
*Someone from Durango, Colorado
*Someone from Tukwila, Washington (I think), and
*Someone from Chicago.

It would be cool if you told me who you are, and how did you find my site... and why do you keep reading this crap? There are a few other people that check the site, but not nearly as often as those folks.

I really don't know who reads this thing... so, if you're reading this... you should leave a note in the "comments" section. I think this could be neat.

Saturday, December 04, 2004

Almost there...

Graduation is exactly 7 days away. And I've got a lot of work to do before I graduate.
So, instead of doing my homework, I'm going to write on my blog about homework.

Through my whole CS student career, with only two exceptions, I've been required to work by myself. I think this is really weird because I'm probably never going to be working on my own when I'm "in the real world." So, I've been toying with the idea to post my whole homework set on the information super highway. Thus, in effect, giving everyone a little help on their homework.

"But people will just copy your homework and turn it in."
I will bet that will almost definitely not work, for a couple reasons. (A) Teachers usually switch up homework assignments. From semester to semester, most teachers will alter the previous version of the homework enough that it can't just be copied. Or, they give completely different homeworks. (B) I'm from the old school (literally), new CS students at my school are going through a completely different cirriculum, and thus, my homeworks don't apply to their homeworks. For example: in my Computer Architecture class, we had to design (and write, in Verilog) a CPU. These new pansies don't have to do that. (C) Teachers have access to my homework too. So, if someone tried to turn in my homework as their own, a teacher would be able to catch it and promptly throw the cheater out of school.

"Whats the point if no one can use it"
Its an invaluable reference. Finding good code examples in the interweb can be difficult. When/if I put my code online, you'll be able to see how to implement polynomial stuff with Scheme!
(cons (car aList) (cons (cadr aList) (add-to-poly (cddr aList) coeff exp))

One of the hopes that I hope when/if I put this up, is that people out of school will be able to look at the homework, and attempt it. Then, they can check to see if their solution is better than mine (not hard, I'm not very good at CS).

Anyways, I've got to go help a friend taking CS101 with her webpage.