Georgia Tech OMSCS - Week 1 Recap

I know, it's only Thursday!

So I just finished my first "week" of class for Georgia Tech, and I wanted to get some of my thoughts down on virtual paper. I'd like to chronicle my adventure semi-frequently in this manner, so please bear with me if this isn't your cup of tea.

Some Background

So one of the things I'm willing to admit right off the bat is that I was pretty nervous. Given my prior trials and tribulations trying to even get into the program, I had no idea what to expect. I remember some of the experience of getting my MS the first time around, and some of the courses I took as an undergrad, but I wasn't sure how this experience would compare. What is an education like at a top-10 institution? Would I be able to measure up to the bar and finally put some of my constant inferiority complex to rest?

Well, we'll have to wait a while for the answer to that last one. I'm not very confident by nature, even though I know I have a modicum of programming and communication skills. I'm always looking for ways to "prove" myself, so to speak, and I tend to take on more than I can handle as a result. I am not sure that that personality trait will ever truly go away, and honestly this Georgia Tech experience stems from that whole complex - I had had a couple of bad interview experiences with companies that rhyme with Moogle and Bamazon, and was trying to figure out how to bolster my knowledge and not feel like I was incompetent. I guess this way I'll be able to point at a fancy piece of paper and say "Well, I was good enough for that".

Provided I am actually up to the task, that is.

The experience so far

Anyway, enough navel-gazing. I'm taking CS-8803 - AI for Robotics - and so far the experience has been pretty good. On the one hand the course is delivered almost entirely via lecture. I have mixed feelings about this, and feel another digression is in order. I know that there are different ways people learn, and that some people feel that they learn best visually. I also, though, have taught several classes where the student claims to only learn well visually but, if you really got down to it, what they really wanted was a step-by-step guide on how to do an assignment rather than a lecture that builds the foundations for a concept that they then apply themselves. In other words, they were (in my eyes) using the "I'm a visual learner" mantra as an excuse rather than a legitimate gripe. If you couple this with my NOT being a visual learner (I want nothing more than a big textbook to work through), I tend to be skeptical of the approach to begin with.

I have to say, though, I was pleasantly surprised. Aside from minor frustrations the lectures do a decent job of presenting the material. The way a module works is that a video of the lecture plays up to the point of a "quiz," which in a classroom setting would be the instructor asking a question of the class, and stops to allow you to input an answer into a form that is then checked for correctness. Once the answer is entered (or skipped, if you get stuck) the lecture continues until the next quiz. The lectures themselves vary widely, using video recordings in some cases, recorded whiteboard sessions in others, and still others with the professor simply talking to the students. Of most use to me were the intermittent programming quizzes - the instructor would explain a concept, then say "Ok, now you try to write a function that does this," and suddenly you're presented with a minimal Python IDE to develop code in, along with a test run and evaluation button to determine if your code is correct. It's obvious that a lot of thought went into these lectures, and it comes through in the design of the course.

Frustrations

My frustrations with the course so far are two-fold. First is that the course is programmed in Python - a language I had a passing familiarity with, but which is subject to its own quirks. If the course was in C++ or Ruby I'd have no trouble, but as it is I am learning the language as I go along. On the one hand that's good - I'll have another language under my belt when I finish the class - but it is also frustrating and increases the time I spend on assignments. I'm not sure there's any way around this, though.

The second frustration is with the video-based learning. It is extremely challenging to reference material in a video, particularly when programming. Programming is a lot about copy-and-paste, and you can't paste from a video. I have had this argument with any number of people, and I remain unconvinced - for these type of topics you can provide a video if you like, but the most useful thing to a professional programmer is a text version that allows you to 1: keep it open in a browser next to your IDE for reference, 2: allows you to review without having to hunt through a video, and 3: allows you to learn without needing to break your concentration for audio and visual stimuli. To me this is reminiscent of a problem I had at Enova, which is that for some reason the IT department thought it was a good idea to do all of their internal support tutorials as videos. Videos are an extremely poor choice when adding a VPN key, or when you want to save the information for future reference. If OMSCS is going to be mostly video-based, I suspect I'll be lamenting this for a while to come. But then again, I was able to complete the first week's assignment and understand the material (with one exception, as Bayes rule is still kicking my ass for some reason), so I guess the point is moot.

Communication

The course also has a separate message board on piazza.com, which is used to speak with your fellow classmates and ask questions of the instructor and TA. This is a great feature, I think, and has helped me a couple times. Most of the people in the course are active on the boards and very willing to help, and it is also helpful to see that some people have the same questions I do. Where I've had trouble in the course I've quickly been able to get a response on the message board, as both my fellow students and the instructors are active there.

Self-direction

One of the things I really like at the moment, but could see myself coming to dislike, is that the course is largely self-directed. If I had the time to spare, I could push through the entire course as quickly as possible. While the lectures are organized into "Lessons" that represent a week's worth of work, there is nothing preventing you from moving ahead as you work. On the plus side, this means that I was able to finish the first week's assignment well over a week before it was due, which is great as I maintain a far too busy schedule to begin with. However, I can see this causing problems near the end of the term as if we are looking at a time-based submission and grading process, I won't be receiving feedback on my submissions until they are officially "due". So for example, if I was to power through module 2 right now I wouldn't see any feedback until June 4 at the earliest, by which time the assignment will likely be out-of-mind.

I suppose time will tell on how successful this approach is for me. For now I like that I can work ahead when I have some spare time!

Evaluating my own teaching experience

Another thing the OMSCS experience is allowing me to do is evaluate my own teaching, and see what is effective. I teach college courses online for a couple universities, and seeing how this course is conducted provides some interesting contrasts. From the start, it's obvious that more effort went into the Udacity course design than goes into the courses I typically teach - which has been a constant frustration point for me as, with one exception, I often don't get to design my courses so that they have the material I feel is necessary. However, a lot of the assignments in the class I'm taking now are "did it or not" evaluations - you get points for completing the activity, but no partial points are awarded. I don't know what grading will be like yet (doesn't happen until next week), but I think "all or nothing" assignments are a disservice to the student and fail to recognize that it IS possible to half-understand something.

Conclusion

To sum up, I'm very much in a wait-and-see pattern right now. Some of my frustrations with the format may be exclusively due to this course's design - I've already heard that some of the other courses handle things a lot differently - while others may be due to the format. I guess my opinion will continue to evolve as I run through the experience. I know that's kind of a weak close to this lengthy post, but to be honest that's about how I feel right now - not very strongly on the "good" or "bad" spectrum, just "different."

I do think it will be interesting to come back and read this after I have a few more classes under my belt. So stay tuned, I guess.

New Freelance Gig

Hey All,

I know it's been pretty quiet here lately, but I've been keeping up with my writing. I lately picked up a new freelance writing gig. I'll be writing content for the blog at Elite Gaming Computers - http://www.elitegamingcomputers.com/blog

You can see my first article here: http://elitegamingcomputers.com/kingstons-hyperx-cloud-gaming-headset/

Progress galore, and where I'm planning on going

So I have some good news to report, and something aside from a theme story to post. As of 2-26-13, the first draft of Majestic - a sequel to my novel Marvelous - has been completed! 52,000 words over 26 days - that's a rate of just around 2,000 a day (the word count is approximate). Obviously some days were less, and some more - for the first couple weeks I average 4k per day on business days. I usually write on the train, when I'm not teaching classes online, and I find that the built-in three hours a day I spend commuting really gives me time to pump out some words - if I can make myself write, that is. For now, I'm going to let it sit on the back burner while I unwind. Well, that and actually read it. I know a couple people who have been bugging me to get a look at it.

Of course, the interesting thing for me was that Marvelous hasn't even been published yet, and here I am writing a sequel. It seems to me that this would make the success of the second book inextricably tied up with that of the first. That's really had me thinking a lot about what I want to do with these books. There are two real options available, it seems - traditional publishing, and self publishing.

Traditional publishing, like it or not, provides an author with the reputation of a published writer. Someone else has purchased the work, vetted it, and put it on sale. My original goal with writing was really just to see what came of it, and ultimately see if my skills are "good enough" for the world at large. A traditional publisher does this through a clearly defined path, and though the royalties for all but the top dozen or so authors are not as great as you'd think, it can still provide a steady income as a second job.

Self publishing is kind of an end run around traditional publishers. There are other bloggers (such as J.A. Konrath and Chuck Wendig) who have delved into the numbers and come up on the side of self-publishing. And they do very well for themselves. However, taking a look at the community as a whole you get a sense that while indeed there is a wide variety of motivations among people who choose to self publish, there are still just a few primary motivations. Some people self-publish because they have enough of a name where it makes them more money with the higher royalty agreements you see for self-published ebooks. Others self-publish because they feel like their work was cast aside prematurely by the traditional publishing world, and that if they got it in front of customers it would take off. But perceptions of both classes are impacted by the overall stigma of self-publishing, and they aren't helped by the simple fact that there are a lot of very bad self-published books out there.

Which, as my rambling winds down, brings me back to what I was originally trying to write about - what I'm going to do with the book. Marvelous is tied up in the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award for the moment, until I get definitive feedback and earn an exit from the contest. I'm trying not to be too optimistic about my chances, but based on the agreement I signed when I submitted I need to let the contest run its course. At that point I will start submitting to agents. As a new author I have no cachet and no name recognition, meaning I'll end up in a lot of slush piles. However, I really don't intend to do this forever. I have a busy day job and a part time job that also eats up a not-inconsiderate amount of time, and honestly after a while I'll just be beating a dead horse. So my current plan is to try and obtain representation for a year - until June, 2014 - at which point if I have seen no progress I'll self publish the duology as ebooks.

Of course if I meet success or feel overall better about the submission process as I go through it I may make alterations to this approach, but this is my current plan. Hopefully by the time next June comes around I'll have a couple more books under my belt (I have some ideas on the back burner that I'm starting to flesh out).

Have any of you written a novel and had it published, traditionally or otherwise? What are your thoughts?

An update - Of Progress and Performance

So for those of you who don't know me very well, I've only been taking my writing seriously for about 8 months now. Prior to June of last year, I hadn't done any serious writing of any kind since the philosophy papers I wrote in college. Of course I have not published anything yet, so I can't really be considered a "professional writer" or anything along those lines, but the point that since that time I've written close to 100,000 words in various formats should not be ignored.

I suppose I never really explained the purpose of this blog. My original goal was to simply offer up stories I've been writing as a form of entertainment to the reader, as well as - gasp - do some advertising and lay the foundations for any future books I may publish. Most of my posts, accordingly, are short stories I've written and progress reports. I may branch out as time goes on (actually, there's no "may" about it given how much time I spend reading other blogs like that of Chuck Wendig (terribleminds.com)).

This post is definitely in the "progress report" category.

Today, my first book - Marvelous - was accepted into the second round of Amazon's Breakthrough Novel Award competition.

To say I'm happy would be an understatement. I wrote Marvelous on a whim, in 30 days, because my sister (Jennifer Young, a fantastic writer) challenged me to a word duel. I won, but that's beside the point. My first real effort (minus some intense editing and headaches) was selected as part of the top 20% of all entrants. It's empowering and exciting, as well as terrifying all at the same time. The first round was on my blurb. The next, though, is on my writing.

Anyway, on a different note, I hit 26k words on Majestic this morning. The story is humming along, and I'm getting to a phase where I'm finding it a bit of a challenge to focus on the writing. The same thing happened to me with Marvelous the first time around. I'm pushing through, but my pace has definitely decreased from the 4k words per day I was putting up last week. Of course, the fact that I'm working extra hours at work may play into that.

Anyway, the quick summary: It's all good here, for now!

A Majestic Progress Report - Day 8

THE PUNS SHALL CONTINUE UNTIL MORALE IMPROVES.

I suspect that will be a while.

21,117 words. In 8 days.

Yeah, the day isn't over yet, and that's only about 3,000 words per day (or it will be after my commute home tonight), but I feel like I've been making good progress. I've hit my stride on a couple of story devices I was worried about, and I am sure that I have enough material to hit my goal of 60,000 words by the end of the month. 

Hell, if things keep up like this I should have an entire week free at the end!

Majestic - Day 3 status update!

Just in time for the Super Bowl this afternoon.

Total word count: 9,057

I'm pretty pleased with that number, for only three days worth of work. So far the story is very much in "introductory" mode. I do have a working title, which if you're playing along with our home game you'll notice is in the title of this post (as well as presented as an aside in the last post). Book one was called "Marvelous," so why can't the sequel be "Majestic"?

Finished up just around 3,000 words today. Which, surprisingly, is my average thus far. I'm trying not to get too excited - after all, I did get off to a strong start with my Camp NaNoWriMo novel before having to take a step back as life got in the way - but I have to say that I am very much on track for hitting my 60,000 word target for the month of February.

Of course I have classes that I still teach online, and a course I am designing that kicks off next week, so in 7 days my song may be a bit different. That being said, though, I think I can front-load enough of the book so that I am not killing myself come the end of the month. I want to be hale and hearty for vacation!