Category: UNCC

Found an interesting page earlier that I would like to share with my loyal readers: http://www.city-data.com/zips/28223.html.

After having classes for five semesters straight with no breaks it has finally hit me that I should take seriously a decision to not take any courses during the Summer 2005 semester. I originally wanted to take some courses for my own interests, but now that I am looking at that idea I have determined that I just can’t handle it. I haven’t been as interested this semester in anything as I should be, based on my enthusiasm entering in Fall 2004. Last summer I took classes because I had nothing better to do, but this summer I have rediscovered several of my hobbies and I have plans for having a lot of fun during the summer and I don’t want to be the one saying “well, I would love to, but I have this paper to write”. Anytime anything like that is hanging on me I always wait until the last minute (there is an optimal amount of mental fatigue which keeps me focused), but it becomes an excuse from the time it is assigned until an hour before I start it. The summers of my youth are becoming numbered, I don’t want to murder another one with course-work. If I do anything this summer it will be completely independant study (and not recorded by any registrar). This summer I just want to be a normal blond guy with some amount of ab definition, playing on a beach somewhere.
The summer of 2004 was mostly a waste as the season goes. I didn’t spend nearly enough time outside and I didn’t let myself rest until about a week before classes started at UNCC. Summer is supposed to be a fun season. I can see myself getting up at sunrise, just to watch it, then begin my day by doing some reading for leisure, then go outside to enjoy the sun at some type of activity, either sports or something. If I get bored with that I can always join a gym or something. At sometime passed mid-day I can find a nice shady place to take a walk, enjoy the smells of summer and just spend time contemplating, perhaps about my morning read. That should bring us up to about 4 or 5PM, a good time to go visit my garden and see how things are progressing, harvest something if it is time, or whatever. Not sure how well my fantasy summer will work out, but there is always room for modification as long as no long-term commitments are made, such as academic responsibilities.
I think the point of this entry was to state that things are getting to me this semester and I need time to chill. My overachieving goals are unrealistic and I should focus on actually enjoying my life and not getting so wrapped up in stuff that doesn’t matter in the end. Since I am human I have a restriction on my availible time on this planet, I am going to try to not waste it.

The identity crisis with one of my courses just got more complicated…
When the course was still being planned it was called INFO2231, but then was posted to the registrar as ITCS2231 (by the ITCS department), and I enrolled in the course. For this semester the course is listed only as ITCS2231, but for the summer it is listed as INFO2231, with a cross listing of ITCS1214, meaning that ITCS1214, INFO2231 and ITCS2231 are essentially the same course. The course itself evolved from some internal issues between the Belk College of Business (COB) and the College of Information Technology, department of Computer Science. The COB decided that the CS department didn’t teach programming in a way that was effective. The ITCS department responded with a request for the COB to rewrite the curriculum to the way they wanted, the course essentially was the same, except for sucking all of the fun out of the course. ITCS accepted the changes, but assigned the course to Sara Scott, the only ITCS instructor who has never been called “mean” or “difficult” by anyone, and who makes the course fun anyway. As of this point the new course has NOT been written to any catalog or course description list in the University, which makes me question whether or not either department will declare it as existing, or if it will fade away with no record, and things will continue with ITCS1214 as the introductory programming course, but offered with VBA instead of Java.
Fortunately for me, this change of opinion of ITCS2231 will result in it being able to count as ITCS1214 for me and I won’t have to take ITCS1214 as an ITIS (COIT: Information Systems) major.
note: ITCS/INFO 2231 is “Introduction to Business Programming” and ITCS1214 is “Introduction to Computer Science”.

I would like to start this entry by stating the following: At this time I am retracting my hatred of mathmatics.
My previous hatred for math was based on a predisposition to it being a foriegn concept due to 3 levels of Algebra in high school. My predisposition was then linked to the instructor, Mrs. Diane Ward. Mrs. Ward has a great personality and is a good math teacher to most, but it just didn’t work with me. The predisposition likely caused me to fall off the horse for second time in AP Statistics when I allowed myself to become discouraged. I must have learned something from the course, I managed to pass the Advanced Placement exam.
I don’t know why, but for some reason this evening I decided to complete some Calculus homework that is due next Wednesday. The homework covers limits and the concept of handling infinity in a limit situation. I noticed after I completed it that I used some of the concepts that I learned in logic (primarily orderly execution of a formal method) in completing the assignment. Either Jae Woo Jeong is a great instructor, or Calculus is easy. I still don’t want to try the other version of Calculus (for engineers), but I feel a little better about my math skills now. I won’t know until final grades are posted whether or not I made a mistake by circumventing Campus Pipeline’s registration system validations. At the moment I think I made the right decision, but it is still possible that it was a mistake.
Now off to do Accounting homework, or maybe just read a little Plato… either way, there is educational stuff to be done. (ok, how many of you know that I am going to run off and work on GITI or something?)

I have now dropped LBST2102-022 due to administrative errors at UNCC.
I went to Denny 215 as scheduled for my course today at 3:00PM, when I arrived there was obviously something wrong, Dr. West was in the room and the course was supposed to be taught by Mrs. Bonaparte. The administrative issue occured in the communications department, there was some sort of communication failure between the department and its faculty [laughter is now appopriate]. Mrs. Bonaparte was never notified that she had been scheduled to teach the course specified and as a result the communications department had no one to teach LBST2102 in that field. Earlier today a book was even specified for the non-existant instructor. The error was not caught until 9:30 this morning when Dr. West was looking over the information for his department (general education). By 3:00 a replacement instructor had been located, Mr. David Johnson, from the history department. Upon hearing the department of the replacement I felt like fate was sending me notification that 18 hours is just plain nuts. As soon as I could get logged into Campus Pipeline today I dropped the course (that was no easy task). I will do almost any topic at UNCC, but I draw the line at anything history again.
Dr. West mentioned that 3 other errors like the one with our course occured in the commnunications department. This seems to be just another example of how badly Campus Pipeline is fucking up the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. All issues I have had while at UNCC have occured because of that system and its related systems. UNCC, it is time to throw away CP, it sucks. We have an MIS, SIS, and several Computer Engineering departments, you would think that UNCC could develop its own proprietary system without much of a problem, but of course outsourcing takes less effort. I have gone from not liking Campus Pipeline to despising it.
Bottom line is that I am now at 15.0 credit hours and there is no intention to replace the other course.

Ok, I think I should have figured this out earlier than this, but I have a really not-so-great schedule for myself for the Spring 2005 semester. Chris was looking over the schedule and pointed out the errors to me. I have a packed schedule with only 10 minutes between classes, and im arriving on campus about an hour earlier than I am used to. My Fridays have been expanded to an hour later because I missed the fact that there was actually a gap between Physics and English last semester. The courses causing the problems are ACCT2121 and ECON2102, the two from “my department”. Is this any shock to anyone? I thought I would just simply change majors to one of the related fields because I decided I didn’t like the business concentration in the Management Information Systems major, but when I asked the registrar’s server to audit my present courses against the other majors there was a slight suprise: the same bullshit courses are required in those majors also. I am not overly concerned with ECON2102 because im familiar with it and know what to expect, and ACCT2121 makes sense, and may be practicle. My concern is with the fact that I am treating myself like a machine, going from one course to another throughout the day with no break, just like in high school. Chris pointed out that this behavior is more than a little dangerous to myself and will serverely limit my time for interacting with other people. I know without a doubt that I will meet and become familar with 6 people at UNCC during Spring though, the PHIL3060 class. The people of the Plato course are likely to be a tight group, as there are only 7 of us and the reigning queen of Philosophy at UNCC, Dr. Judith Presler. I’m not sure what to expect from the course, but knowing Dr. P it will likely be fun. I think Thursday will be the most enjoyable of my week. At the moment I am uncertain as to what to do about the ACCT2121 and ECON2102 situation. I guess I can always use the last minute drop/add thing if I have to, although when entering UNCC I decided that I would never do that and that I would have all of my academic plans in order ahead of time. This can not be happening! I am not supposed to be foulable, it isn’t in my plan!
My Overall Thoughts: i thought this was the semester that could screw me or unscrew me, but im just as screwed as i was before, only now i know that i am equally screwed on either path and i can select the path with which to screw myself at a later date without wasting any credit hours.

My visual Spring 2005 Semester Schedule is now availible at curtis.kularski.net/public/Spring2005.pdf.
My current semester text schedule from GITI is now availible at curtis.kularski.net/status/schedule.php
The references to sleep in the PDF version of the schedule is only a theoretical time window when I may choose to sleep, but is by no means an indication of the fact that I will sleep.
Maybe for Fall 2005 I can have GITI to produce a visual, but for now the PDF is the best I can do for visual schedules. If I am not doing anything during the summer we might even end up with a Curtis Tracker, for my own security I may have to secure that host though.

My final grades for the Fall 2004 semester are in. All of my courses with the exception of Western History and Culture came out as As. As a result I should probably forgive myself for my performace in WH&C. Somehow forgiving of the self is just so much harder than forgiving others. In reality though, I guess I have nothing to forgive myself for. I did what I did in the course because of who I am and my personality traits, goals, aspirations and motivations. There is nothing I could have done to change the situation other than immerse myself in material that would end up stressing me out. Could that have caused me to have 4 Ds and only 1 A (in WH&C of course) or would it have still not been good enough and resulted in me still having the D in WH&C but also having that result in all of my other courses as well from the stress? Those are questions I can not answer. All I know about my learning style is that I don’t really study. I attend the lecture, read what I need to, and try to generally experience the course. That was somehow the easiest with Abnormal Psychology. I don’t know how everyone else’s brain works, but if I remember something just for the hell of it, it is usually a very temporary memorization, but if I dive in and experience the course it doesn’t leave me. The morning of the Logic exam people were trying to cram it all in and remember stuff, I was fairly calm and relaxed and more concerned with an English project due later in the day. I performed well enough to still have an A in the course and feel really good about the exam.
I haven’t done much in the few days since my last exam on Friday, just sort of been here and have been sleeping a lot. I have been working with clay some, but not as much as I should be to get better at either my wheel or handbuilding techniques. I have a new 1/3 HP (250 Joule/s) wheel coming next week that im excited about trying on. Reopening old hobbies is a slow proccess, but I am enjoying it more now than I did in the past, I guess because now I have the resources to explore it more fully and therefore enjoy it more completely.
I have found myself logging in to GITI every day since exams, even though all sections read as being fully complete with nothing to do, even the active course section at the moment. I guess I will formally activate those sometime in January. During this time since exams GITI has been in a state where I could easily tare it appart and it wouldn’t affect anything, but I haven’t gotten that much motivation back yet. I have given thought to giving myself a system of being able to pre-request numbers from GITI in blocks, so I could ask GITI for a block of like 10 numbers for me to be able to use during a week, so I could issue numbers without being at GITI or having to interact with it directly to have my organizational systme be effective. I don’t know that I can seriously see myself walking around with a sheet of pre-printed Avery labels with barcodes on them. How would instructors react to me slapping a barcode/number label on their pop-quizes? I guess it would be similar to either the way that Dr. Presler or Betsy handled it. Betsy found me to appear highly organized and didn’t think I was nuts when I gave her a paper with a GITI number and barcode on it. Dr. Presler’s reaction was a little more like a blank stare and a laugh. Other instructors don’t seem to notice, including Dr. Frakes. I don’t know that I will ever get to a point where GITI’s barcodes are actually in active use, but for now I like knowing they are there, so as I become more GITI-centered in the way I do things, I will be able to convert instantly. Its strange how GITI’s numbers (actually, they are MySQL issued auto-incriment index numbers) have evolved. The numbers started as just being there because they were required for the safe operation of a SQL table, but then I got more attached to them in my coding, and now they are essential to everything I do with GITI, they make things make sense. I think I should write a debriefing sheet for GITI sometimes though, people expect too much humanistic logic from GITI, not just its linear logic. There was a project due in Enlgish on the English exam day, Patrick, one of my group members saw GITI ID number 0505 and thought it was the final draft because it had a higher number than the actually final draft, which was 0412, even though I had defined each of the numbers for him. Luckily, Betsy is very understanding and didn’t kill our grade for the paper being a little late (I think GITI confused her occasionally too).
Anyway, final grades are in and im farily happy, and apparently im good at having tangent thought.

I just looked at the UNCC records system and noticed that my least favorite class this semester (because of instructor’s methods, not because of content), Western History and Culture: Masterpieces of Western Art, has been officially closed and that a grade as been posted for it. Unfortunately, the grade system itself is offline until December 21st, and it is after hours for the 49er Express Student Services system, so I am still left wondering on the grade. Deductive Logic, Abnormal Psychology and English Argumentation all went well in their exam periods, so I am thinking I did well in those courses and am not too concerned with those grades, but on my courses that are closer to life-and-death for me I am a bit worried. The disappointment that is Physics Lab was posted last week, that exam really screwed me over. I think Physics lecture tomorrow will be ok though, so I can redeem myself slightly there. As of the last day of all of the lectures I had the mathmatical possibility of an A in all of the courses except for Western History and Culture, and I kinda knew that one was a lost cause (but didn’t treat the final exam as that though). The first exam in the course I wasn’t sure of what to expect, the second was a little better but still not very clear, but I think I might have done ok on the final exam. The course itself caused me to be a little scared because of only having 3 exams for grades, but I guess its ok, especially with the possibily of 8 points extra credit on the final grade. I personally earned 6 points of the 8 availible for extra credit, I dont know if it will be enough to really save my grade, but it certainly cant hurt it. Abnormal Psychology is closer to this than my other courses, but it would never kill a students grade, for one the tests are muliple choice and not open ended. In addition there are some other assignments and extra credit opportunities availible, so the 4 tests dont have to stand alone. Dr. Presler makes the course seem like we are back in high school, there is homework, weekly quizing, and tests when she feels like it, then also a nice cumlative final. I am not truely sure how Betsy grades, or if she just pulls numbers/letters out of her head. We have turned in 2 papers, a few homework assignments and one group project. All of it graded by her, quite subjectively. I get the feeling that anyone who put forth some effort will get an A and those with more than 5 absences will have Fs. There is no one in the course who actually shows up that doesn’t try their best in her course. Its kind of funny now that I think about this, but Western History and Culture will be the one to kill my GPA, I thought that all along it would be a math course that would finish me off, oh well, there is still Calculus in the spring, im sure it will take its fair share of my mental resources. As long as I have a decent instructor and can enjoy the course I will be fine. In high school I had the same instructor over and over again for math courses, Mrs. Ward is a great person, but her math teaching skills just aren’t compatible with my ability to comprehend math.

I have been sitting here contemplating various aspects of my college career thus far for the past few hours. After careful analysis there is nothing truely odd about my experiences, with the exception of any interaction I have had with the UNCC registrar.
In the time I have been interacting with this registrar I have managed to bypass 2 proccesses. The first bypass was in June when I was supposed to be stuck at SOAR for 2 days. When my records were being modified a few days before SOAR the registrar/admissions office managed to make a strange flaw appear that essentially released all flags and holds on my account, this should have not happened at all. I registered before SOAR even began, again, this is abnormal and should have never occured. I am inclined to believe that this flaw was directed by fate to comply with my declaration of “UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES WILL I STAY IN A UNCC DORM”, of course that declaration applied only to situations where it would be mandatory and I was not comfortable with the campus. I went to SOAR when I was scheduled to, for the first day of it, and was assigned to a group, but the Orientation Counselleor left be behind before we even got started (lets start Scared Freshman Syndrome right). I was assigned to another OC for the first part of the orientation, but unfortunately I had already seen enough of UNCC’s hospitality by that point. I was told by many people, the DOS (Dean of Students) included, that SOAR was important, but in the time i was there i was neither impressed nor enlightended. If anything I learned not to trust the DOS [for my nerd friends, you can pretty much guess how I felt about her before I met her because of her acronym]. The DOS lied to me about various things that morning during SOAR. The DOS is supposed to be someone that students can count on, go to and seek for comfort with most issues. Strangely, the department of admissions was much more friendly, caring and helpful with everything I have needed since the day i first sent my application, even though that department is trained to look at students as only numbers. However, the department of admissions has its flaws, including their neglegence with records. I had to visit them 3 times to get an isssue corrected where all of my transfer credits went missing for a few days, even after my record was manually reconstructed.
Next topic, Prerequisits! UNCC uses a tool called Campus Pipeline to manage registrations, drop/add, and records management on the student side. This tool has to be the stupidest thing I have ever seen. To get a course that has a prerequisit at UNCC you must only add the prerequisit to the schedule for the semester, then perform a conditional drop-add with the course you want and the course is granted completely and without question of the system. I haven’t tested this to a level of multiple successive pre-requisits, but because of the way it functions I would assume that it would be exactly the same. This is a flaw that could harm the integrity of the institution if some students who just wanted to complete their degree and leave started using it to get into courses for the purpose of getting a C and moving on. Upon anylizing the situation I find fault with my own usage of it, but what is done is done now. I used the procedure to bypass a topic area that I was complete SICK of, ALGEBRA! After having 3 years of it, I am tired of it and dont want to look at it again. In high school I was determined to be competent enough to take AP Calculus, which is equivilent to UNCC’s Non-Engineering Calculus. Also, I managed to complete AP Statistics and get credit at UNCC for it, Statistics is equivilent to Calculus in pre-requisits. My competency in math isn’t the point here though, the point is that pre-reqs should be enforced better than they are by the UNCC registration system. At CPCC there is a very tight registration procedure that verifies pre-requisits. One thing I also noticed about the registration system that shouldn’t have happened (although it didn’t affect me directly) is the handling of courses that require registration permits. One of the philosophy courses I am taking next semester required me to have a registration permit by departmental rules, but there were no notes or anything on the record for the course to state as such, but in this situation I had my permit in place (Thanks Dr. Presler, youre the best) before registration was opened. There are only 7 people registered for the course, none of which I know, so I can’t confirm that, but typically, if there is no note, then there is no catch.
The thing I hate most is having to worry about when Campus Pipeline is up and when it is not. It only maintains records for 18,000 people, it shouldn’t need to be down for 6 hours every day of the week for maintainance and record backups. Seems weird and inefficient to me, but then again, I don’t have to deal with the back end of the records system…at least not yet.
I will continue to monitor my records to make sure that everything stays correct until I graduate, but the records system at UNCC still scares me.