Yea, this software is sweat, those 4 areas I can drag and resize however I wish. The top right is where the video plays, decent quality, but can drag and stretch across the screen, if interested. Below that is the projection screen, so I can folllow what it going on with the lecture. On the top right is the white board, whenever the Prof writes anything on the board, it shows up on my screen; super cool. Down of the bottom left is a tool for pausing and playing, eceterra; If I want I can add another white board if necessary. This runs on a combination of Java and .Net web services, so it is really cool; maybe I will learn enough to write something like this on my own; right!

Thank you Ms. Cam, actually I spent my Columbus Day (Oct. 10) at Ohio State, just studying and frolicing, you know; was actually a really great day. So I guess I still bleed a little 'Scarlet and Gray' but deep down I am a Blue Demon.

Way to go, you should proud of yourself, yes, never give up:)

Well actually, the last class of my first class; though about 6 weeks late since I am bored, thought I would post it.

But this is what college is becoming(another), though this is a terrible shot you can see where education is going. Truthfully speaking, I got so much more out of this course than I have with other courses. See, there weren't any pretty girls to look at, or even not so pretty girls to wonder about and I could view it all at once or pause it when I got tired. I decided the breaks and I decided when to watch them, so no more showing up to class after a rough day at work, or when I was younger getting up at 6:30 to get to class at 8:00 working on 3 or 4 hours of sleep.

The comradery that happens when attending class on campus is gone, but I rarely talk to any students that I went to school with from my last degree and that concluded about 16 months ago.

Because I just paid $2229.00 in tuition, that sucks!

Signed up for a class that starts on June 13th, wow a graduate student. But really, it's no biggy, today you have to go the extra mile to get anywhere, plus learning is a heck of a lot better than watching TV, filthe, or drinking beer.

Everyone says that online work is nonsense and that it is easier and doesn't really count. Well I have already decided that if I lived in central to northern Illinois I would go there, not anywhere else; would prefer Champaigne-Urbana, but I'm not that good. But they have some 8 technical degrees and a student web site that is beyond what I expected. Being at Franklin was like a Mom 'n Pop business compared to DePaul. What is really neat, is that I expected that the online courses would be a bunch of chat sessions online, and a ton of homework; which stinks because I took a couple of class like that in the past and that is a joke. What they do is they have a teacher in front of a black board teaching a class (ghost or not) with video cameras on him or her; then at the end of the day that video is made available for download from the course web site. Neat Huh!

Well I sort of feel bad because I never got to go back to Ohio State. Being from Columbus, OSU is the cathedral of central Ohio, but to be truthful I don't miss sitting in an auditorium listening to some professor give a lecture. I once counted over 1500 students in Independence Hall during a Macro Economics class. I mean really, there was some 70+ rows and at least 30 seats in each, if 2/3 of the seats are taken up: you figure it out. Then you get to meet with a TA whom can't speak English and cares only about their own academic endeavours.

So now I should be able to see the professor as well as not getting caught up in rush hour traffic 4 days a week(because at OSU they want you there at 8am and stay all day), and even get to work full-time in the process and save some money and qualify for a pension. Nah, I don't feel bad.

Why? Hmmm, well it was time for me to push my problem solving and educational background farther, plus I have been yearning to learn a few new things. And you never know, the way the economy is and the way people of this country have such a hard time in buying products from this country and supporting the local proprietors I feel I almost need to be a guru to have any long-term job security; plus, just imagine how fat I'd get if I was forced to work at Taco Bell! But I really enjoy learning and feel this is the best thing for me and it can take me to the level that I really want to get to. As in the letter I wrote to DePaul, "I think of this opportunity as a mentor in my career."

It was around last August that I was getting real scared, I had changed, as well as devoted my career to programming in the IT world and well the economy was still in the dumper. Luckily I put together some projects then eventually got my current job with the State of Ohio. But I have come to enjoy programming very much and felt that maybe I needed a graduate degree to get a menial paying job. So I had been scoping out graduate programs throughout the state, just now which is basically relegated because I work full-time. My options now are to get another degree from Franklin or go online. After looking and looking I narrowed my choices to Drexel University in Philadelphia, Boston University, and DePaul University.

I could not attend Boston University because tuition was around $2800 a course (and I only get $3500 from the state) and most importantly I hate the ball team there more than anything else. I really like Drexel, but Drexel's degree was very narrow, plus they wanted you to take Accounting, so I really took a strong look at DePaul.

Depaul’s program is very customizable, I can take all sorts of stuff, from HCI, Databases, Security, Java; you name it. They have some 8 techological Masters programs so the decision came pretty easy. DePaul is a tier three school, where the others are top 100 and very famous. But for my place in life and not able to attend day classes, this is definitely the best opportunity and am lucky as well as excited to get the opportunity.

So now I am a Blue Demon!