School

[harmsalmon]

will probably hear from Northwestern admissions today or tomorrow ;_;

so so so anxious, especially bc in past years all the data I can find shows that people w the same stats as me were admitted, but are like way in the low-end corner

<bites nails and refreshes email neurotically>

[schiaparelli]

checking in, as it's finals week for me and i'm finding it terribly hard to sit down and seriously study for my algorithms exam (although i've been anxiously worrying about it every hour of the past two days). i truly dislike the professors for this course, which isn't helping—one prof accused me of not understanding a solution i was presenting during an oral homework (after continually interrupting me to ask somewhat irrelevant or poorly worded questions, or badly timed questions because i was just about to explain a particular point before he interrupted me), and i'm terrible with conflict and it just made me so anxious i couldn't properly explain things and i got very emotional.

and then i got really upset with myself after. i'm trying my hardest to frame it as "this was the professor being shitty, not me", but it feels a bit whiny and too easy to blame a professor for your own personal incompetencies…maybe i should have been more resolute against the badgering? i don't know. in any case, this is what i keep on thinking about when i try to study for that class. after the oral homework presentation i just ran to a bathroom and cried.

—

the kind of upside of the past few months is that i'm preparing for my senior capstone project in the spring (interactive visualizations of CS algorithms) and i'm super super excited by the project. i'll be dedicating a good portion of my time to working on a project i think is pretty fascinating and worthwhile, and hopefully there will be a good code/design portfolio piece at the end of it. the capstone project is essentially two courses: a fall course where you prep, and a spring course that basically blocks out units in your schedule so you can get the work done. we had the final examination period for the fall capstone course last night, and our professor got pretty legit catering from a nearby hippie-modern italian restaurant. seriously the best free food i have gotten from an academic department.

—

, i'm making a few assumptions obviously about what you're dealing with (and feel free to correct me), but if you're dealing with depression right now it's really hard to assess your capabilities and your competencies in any meaningful way. it's a rough situation to be in and i wish you all the best in grappling with it.

i'm a CS person who's been fighting to escape the seeming financial inevitability of software engineering—definitely feel you about not enjoying writing code for its own sake. i'm very happy to be able to code and understand some of the theory insofar as it's interesting, and it makes me feel capable, and it gives me the ability to peek into all these other interesting fields and have some baseline terminology to work off of. but the thought of spending a workweek writing code fills me with dread.

[vgtbls]

My school has a Student Rating of Teacher Effectiveness system. Does your school have this? It's your chance to let the administration know how poor of a teacher he is.

[CMYK]

Last day of undergrad. Feels weird. Excited for what comes next though.

[JtotheWhat]

Just got back the mark for the last research paper of my undergrad degree (maybe my life..who knows).. it was a long paper on a dry subject and I struggled with it, especially with the idea that it was worth 50% of my grade in that class..after handing it in I thought for sure I bombed and was hoping for anything above 25/50 ...ended up getting 40/50 and now I'm done University... Weird feeling

[CleanThug]

Alright care-tags, I need your help

My high school offers an opportunity for 3 kids a year to study abroad in Germany, Spain, and France(depending on what language you take/have taken in the past). The program is completely free and you're abroad for about 10 months(!!!). I'm absolutely set on going to Spain, no doubts about that, I just really want to give myself the best chance of winning.

It's not as competitive as you might think, I'll probably be up against about 15 people at most. I've done most of the application, and teacher recommendations, all that's left is the interview process in January. They're really looking for the applicant that wants to go the most, you dont need a crazy gpa or anything. What can I do to distinguish myself from all the other applicants? What would you say? I don't have the best grades but I think most of my teachers will I've good recommendations and I think I can woo my intetviewer with personality and poise(this sounds so douchey but eh).

Help me out! Would love to hear any/all opinions

[JewTurk]

[starfox64]

^ tell them how much you like tacos and burritos

but on the real, find something that you like about spain (other than like yo it's cool to study in europe for a year) and hit on that as much as possible. saying you're a huge real madrid fan is probably not good enough. but if you were to say that you were really into architecture and wanted to check out the Alhambra and all the Gaudi stuff in Barcelona and such, that might work. or at least get you moving in the right direction. obviously i don't know your teachers or the exact process in terms of who makes the decision, but in my general experience, people look favorably on candidates who can articulate exactly what it is that makes them want to do something (join a fellowship, work at a company, go to a school, etc.).

where is the program? that affects what kind of things you want to highlight.

[CleanThug]

Yeah know exactly what you mean starfox, really good point

I'd be staying with a host family in Madrid. The school is super nice but I forget the name..

[JewTurk]

What are your guys' personal experience with laptops with regards to school? Any of you guys have one that has held up great for your four+ years? What have you found to be most important wrt usability as a student? I know I want an i7 with a decent resolution (1920 x 780 ideally) and a ~15" screen, good battery life (5+ hours maybe...?) and a 1TB HDD. The ones listed below seem to fit my specs and are still decently slim.

My budget is sub ~$1200 right now, the two below seem to fit the bill.

http://shop.lenovo.com/us/en/laptops/le ... ab-reviews

and

http://shop.lenovo.com/us/en/laptops/le ... -customize

The main difference is the $150 price difference, the cheaper having 8 GB RAM and an optical drive whereas the more expensive has 16 GB of ram and no optical drive. I'm not doing any gaming so I figure the cheaper might be best because of the price difference and the optical drive. I have 8GB of ram on my PC and I don't even get close to using 4 GB...

Thoughts? I just want to make sure I get the best laptop for my needs but once I start looking at laptops with the specs I want they all seem designed for gaming which isn't what I'm looking for. I don't want to overlook anything either.

Advice would be greatly appreciated.

[Ques]

what do you need all that processing power for? imo the most important thing is having a light and slim one for maximum portability. you're going to carry it everywhere so having a 1-2 lb laptop vs a bulky 5-6 lber makes a large difference

[chadnik]

seconding starfox, in that if you want to show you care about the place, then learn about it. read a short history of Spain—learn about the conflicts of the gov't with Basque country and Catalonia, the Arabic influence, life under Franco, etc. what aspect of the country, specific to the country, intrigues you? you don't have to casually drop esoteric facts in your interview, but just show you care enough about the place to have learned about it outside of school (and maybe brushed up on your peninsular Spanish a bit). this also serves the purpose of demonstrating to the committee that this isn't all a front for you to gallivant around Spain and do botellón (although you will do these things); when I applied to a fellowship in Spain, I was told that this was one of the biggest priorities for a committee, to suss out who was there to (mostly) learn and represent America well, and who was there to party.

[maj]

[ramseames]

I have a really fucking light laptop (lenovo thinkpad x1 carbon, 14" 3lbs) and it's great. I would defs not go below 13" cuz you'll appreciate the extra room on the screen over an 11 or 10" monitor, but besides that you just want something light/slim. Ssd is a plus, just keep music/anything big on an external.

Cleanthug jus be like "I'm really really into tapas"

[JewTurk]

[ramseames]

Got it for xmas 2 years ago.

It's pretty killer. Cost about $1400ish back then for the i7 with 4gbs and the 128gb ssd.

Super happy with it. First laptop I've ever had where I've never once wished it was faster, things just happen right away.

I don't really game much anymore but the 3x a year that I do its worked well enough.

Edit :will add that it doesn't have a Cd drive or an Ethernet port but if you really need the former just get an external and you can get an adaptor for the latter if you don't have wifi somehow

[harmsalmon]

just got rejected from Northwestern :'(

[brlmski]

I own a Lenovo Thinkpad Yoga and briefly owned a surface pro. A laptop/tablet hybrid with an active digitizer makes your like easier by so fucking much.

[schiaparelli]

[quad]

[blanket]

Proving I can understand English is very frustrating

Sent in my A level literature results to Australia after I got them more than a month ago and they still haven't figured out whether I meet English proficiency requirements or not.

Called the application centre up. They told me I haven't passed A2. Had to explain how A levels work. I'm not sure if they understand that AS + A2 = A levels

Hello I am speaking to you in English.

They said they'll check up on it.

I've already missed out on the first round of offers ugh. If worst comes to worst I am going to have to take IELTS yuckkkkk

[CMYK]

Just submitted my undergraduate thesis!

[eskdc]

going into the last quarter of my Master's program a year after I started it. Phones ringing left and right for interviews. Life feels good right now

[zayg]

gpa dropped from this semester

still above a 3.8 though

[vgtbls]

I'm still waiting on one class to be graded, but I probably really graduated.

[thephfactor]

I've got one A for sure in the English flaxy class. So I can still keep my scholarship even if i get two C+s and a C- on my Stats, Linear Algebra, and Comp Theory classes... which is looking more and more plausible.

I'm so over this school shit though. The truth is I just don't like math, and math-like things. Should've gone into humanities, now I'm just holding out for that degree so I'm eligible for a humanities grad program. Am pumped about taking actually interesting classes though next semester.

[windowflowers]

Feeling very stressed but also detached from the whole college application process. Basically everyone I know has already finished all their applications and most have already been accepted into schools, but I've barely done most of the common app and written a rough draft of an essay. Considering the idea of not going to college, at or at least putting it off for a year, but I really have no idea what I'd do instead.

[windowflowers]

That's still starting out with more knowledge of what you wanted to do than me. I don't really have a #1 school or honestly any schools I'm particularly interested in to begin with. I'd like to follow my dreams, but I don't know what they are.

[Vaeltaja]

3.15 this semester. I'm ok with this. Slowly getting closer to returning to the 3.0 cumulative.

[thephfactor]

So, I thankfully got a B in that Comp Theory class so with C+s in my math-y classes and an A in Engl flaxy, my overall GPA only dropped by .09, meaning I keep my scholarship and live to fight another day

And I'm hopeful about next semester. More interesting classes, no math-y classes. I'll miss not having an Engl flaxy class though... maybe I'll splurge my time on an elective.