...I didn't fail this semester.

Well, another semester has gone by. The bad: I ended up having to take less than an A for the first time in my college corsework. The good: I didn't fail. This was a bitch of a semester. See that first class there. The one with the B+. I worked harder on that class than anything else I've worked on before and I still managed to squeak out a good grade. I dealt with the following: group work, group members not showing up, getting everyone together, figuring out we needed to use Google docs to collaborate, times and schedules for everyone, work, home, life in general. All of that in a class that decided there was weekly group work and a term group project.

But, I conquered the class. I won. That B+ is nothing to sneeze at. There were other groups that I am sure did not do as well.

...I'm done with that class.

I had a hell of a time this semester with my Information Architecture II class. It's one of the classes that is for the major I am in currently and it is something that I do for a living. So, I thought it should be a snap. Did I ever think wrong. Information Architecture I was all about HTML, so I figured II would be much of the same. I was wrong. It was all about Systems Analysis and Design. Otherwise known in the IT and Business worlds as SDLC. I put the book we used for the class over to the left. I am not selling it back either. It's actually got quite a bit of useful information in it that I can transfer over to the current job.

The worst part about this class was that it was all group work. Weekly group assignments, and a term group project. Getting five people with five different schedules together is not the easiest thing to do. One of our group members missed so many classes he was dropped from the class. He didn't do a whole lot anyway, so it wasn't anything all that major. But it just pissed us off that we were doing all the work at the time while he was just riding along. I will say this, thank god for Google Docs. Without it we would have been dead in the water on all of our assignments. We were able to work miles away from each other and all be editing and collaborating on the documents in real time. The class wanted us to use Visio, we used Google's Draw. There was a learning curve, but in the end it worked out well. We even noticed a couple other groups starting to use Google Docs after we told them that we never actually "meet" up. We just did everything over the internet and that it was working out well for us.

But, today was better because I turned in our final group project for L&I Sci 340... and because I'm done with that class.

...I'm finally in my last week of school.

That's right kids, I'm nearing the end of this semester of higher education. That brings me smack dab in the middle of my second year of classes. It's been a silly ride so far, and one that I know I would have not done so well on if it were not for the fact that I have experience in this field.

Work has really prepared me for these classes in ways I can not explain. But, with that being the case, I feel bad for businesses in the future. There are some people who are taking these classes that have no idea what they are in for. No clue what corporate culture is like. Most of them have either only worked at a fast food or retail environment... or they have never had to work at all. That's probably the scariest part to me. I've worked for the last 21 years now, raised kids, played in bands, and worked my way up the corporate ladder. Most of these kids have just ... gone to school. No leadership skills, no customer service qualities. No putting in the extra effort and not caring if they get rewarded for it because it's something they love to do.

But, today was better because I'm finally in my last week of school for the semester... and that means I won't have to deal with it until Labor Day again.

...I found out I did quite well in my classes.

I had two midterm things that I thought I didn't so so well at. Anyone who knows me knows that I have this fear of school because of not really remembering much of high school. So, natually I think doing things like writing papers and taking tests is hard. All results show this is not the case. I actually do quite well in them. I just need to have more confidence when I am doing things like this.

I'm slowly getting better at it, learning to manage my time, relax and not worry so much about it. I have also taken the stance that no matter how hard I try,I might not get an A all the time and I am now ok with it.

Back to class. It's about to start and the weekly "teacher can't get the projector going" is quite amusing.

...I did better on my paper than I thought I would.

I don't think I write well when it comes to school work. But, I got a B+. I'm not going to complain about that one bit. Hell, a B+ is a lot better than I did in high school.