I hope all is well with you. I have seen some pretty excellent pictures from Joe with the Johnsons in South Africa. I'm sure that they are on their way back by now but it was good to see their smiling faces and the good times that they had. I know that everyone has a lot going on and I hope that everyone is finding life rewarding. I don't have long to do so, but I wanted to drop a quick note to everyone and talk a bit about this week, but particularly the last day.
HCI
The week started off with an "extended weekend" for President's Day. For me, however, it became a very focused study weekend as I spent about 11 hours on a single project alone (excluding my other classwork) between Saturday and Monday. I stayed up until 2:30 AM on Monday to turn in my 3rd project for my HCI course... which started about 5 1/2 hours after I went to bed. It was a long day but I also had a test that day and wasn't too disappointed with how I performed on the test. I think I received a B or B- on those particular endeavors but I have done far worse in the class and it was a real struggle to create what was expected of me (in part because I keep getting overly ambitious with my interface design). I had a chat with my instructor after class on Thursday and he helped me fine tune my idea to something a little more reasonable. It felt good to know that the idea itself wasn't way off base but that I just needed to execute things a little differently to coincide with the scope of the class.
C++
This week we completed our last assignment of unit 2 and are now working anxiously to complete project 2 (moon lander) before it is due on Tuesday. Yesterday, I was working in the Linux Lab to finish the last assignment of the unit, when I had a question that I wanted to clarify with the instructor. He helped me with the last bit of the assignment and we briefly talked about the career fair that was going on that day. I honestly didn't expect much from it, as I am so early in my Computer Science journey, so I wasn't planning on going but my instructor told me to at least go and have a look around. I gathered some information and talked with a few people but one person (Dave) talked with me for a couple of minutes. I mentioned that I was early in my CS degree and he said that he likes to work with people around their first year. I was looking at Summer internship options (to try to soften the blow of college expenses and gain a little experience) and he seemed to respond positively to the idea of me applying. In fact, he showed me that he had an 8:00 appointment open the next morning and suggested I sign up for it. I told him that I would give it some thought and see him in a few minutes if I felt like it was a good move. I'm still wondering if I misunderstood him, but he did drop the pay of $18 / hr in conversation. I can hardly believe that interns would get paid so well so I'm thinking that he was referring to the full-time QA pay but that would be amazing if I heard him right. In any case, I thought about it, returned to tell Dave more about my experience thus far, and then signed up for the 8:00 time slot. Last night I went to a "programming party" (basically a gathering of students working on a project together with the instructor there to answer questions) for 4 hours, got some input from my instructor, and then edited my resume based on that feedback.
The Interview
This morning, at 7:43, I left my house for my interview and I returned home around 8:40. The interview went quite well actually. I remembered creating a portfolio for my IBC course and decided to bring that to the interview (Dave loved it!). I printed off a few copies of my newly updated resume and brought my previous job info / references list on a flash-drive in case they were needed (they weren't). One of the questions involved how I would test a basic login dialog box that included text input for username and password, OK, and Cancel buttons. I ran through several suggestions such as testing correct input, incorrect input, incorrect case (upper / lower), etc. and Dave seemed pleased with my approach. He also suggested inputting SQL commands into the text boxes and using the link that is beyond the login screen to see if you could bypass the login altogether. It was a great test of analytic skills and I learned to think a little bit broader once I felt I had solved the question. Another question I was asked was to take the numbers from 1-100 and to count the number of times that the number "9" showed up. I'll put the the answer at the bottom of this post but encourage you all to try it and write it down if you need to. I did come up with the correct answer but my initial guess (before writing it down) was wrong so I'm glad that I simply said- "my initial guess is this but let me think about this for a moment."
To summarize, the interview went great! Dave thought I really have the analytical skills and mind for QA. He said I should hear back soon but I really believe it because his reactions were positive pretty well the entire time. I'm sure some of you are wondering where Dave works. Well he actually works for the church so it's possible I would be doing Quality Assurance testing on Family Search if I was hired. That also means I would be living in Utah for the duration of the internship : ) I can't remember each of the places but Orem was one location that I do remember. If this works out, I may have to make a trip home and retrieve my car to use during the internship but we'll see. I'm optimistic but don't like to count my chickens before they've hatched.
So the good news: A great interview when I honestly wasn't expecting any real job opportunities for at least a few more semesters, two programming parties that have helped me make some good headway on my project (with a third scheduled for Saturday by a group of us who worked together last night), oh yeah- and I have a date tonight ; ) I'm still struggling immensely to keep up with my course load but a lot of good things are happening right now and I am doing well. I love you all and hope that you are finding lots of opportunities to live life and lots of dreams to look ahead to!
The Answer to that Question (number of 9s, counting 1-100):
Highlight the blank space below for the answer
90, 91, 92, 93, 94, 95, 96, 97, 98 (I blurted out 20 and he said that was correct)
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