El Semestre Nuevo

I’ve been to all of my classes now… So here’s the recap:

• Spanish Lit (L310S) is a good class for 9:30 in the morning. Basically the combination of this class and the one I took last semester (L300S, which is basically Spanish Composition) equals Sra. Zinke’s crazy Spanish 9-10 class back at PPA. Except easier. It just amazes me that she was able to teach high school juniors the college junior equivalent class! Anyways, the prof is less than impressive. He’s not a native speaker, so he speaks really slowly and I found myself dozing off mid-class. But it should be fairly easy- a third of the stuff we’ll be reading is known territory – stuff like La Casa de Bernarda Alba and No Oyes Ladrar los Perros.
• Business Law (BG260) was the dreaded class – a lot of the business core thoroughly disinterests me. But once I went into class, it wasn’t bad at all. The prof also teaches in the vet med school, is a Certified Public Accountant, and attorney, and a business prof to boot. On the side he manages startup companies and sells them to big companies like Google. So his approaches may be interesting, but the class might still end up being dry.
• Business Stats (ST204) is an easy-ish math class with lots of busywork. At least most of the homework will be online and the prof doesn’t seem to suck.
• Application Design & Development (BD240) is a continuation to last semester’s BD210. Object-oriented VB.net stuff. The prof is interesting and I enjoy working on homework that actually interests me.
• Introduction to Eunuchs – er, UNIX. Same thing, effectively. (CS155) This is a 1-credit class for 5 weeks. Purely for fun and self-edification, no degree requirements fulfilled. After that class is over, it carries over to two C++ courses, which I am considering adding.

It’s really weird how I’m growing to like my business classes. Overall, I don’t want to become some guy in a suit whose life goal is maximizing company profit. But my business law prof had an interesting point to make about tech innovations: usually, it’s two geeks with a revolutionary product, but no knowledge of how to turn it into a successful business venture. A third businessman usually must be brought in to provide capital and entrepreneurial support –  be it Steve Ballmer backing Microsoft, or Andy Bechtolsheim backing Google. My CIS degree covers half programming and half business, so I might be able to eliminate the third man. Intriguing.

In other news, Barack Obama and Tom Tancredo both created Presidential Exploratory Committees yesterday. One I am jumping for joy about, and the other disgusts me. Guess which is which.

Oh, and I got my phone back. Not that I talked much on it in the first place.