Mahoneyt^.[blog]

Week six of Winter quarter is coming to a close. I was talking to a friend of mine yesterday about how we’d rather being working than in school. Even if the hours are longer in the workforce, you don’t have to sit through hours of boring classes titled “Needs Assessment” and “Human-Computer Interaction II – Interface Design” (apologies to Bryan and Rick). And, when you go home from work, you’re finished with it! You don’t need to think about doing assignments outside of work which will be due the next day, graded, and reflect on your performance as an employee. In that sense, perhaps it’s the homework that I don’t like. I think that apart from that, working full time gave weekly retribution in the form of a paycheck and that is much more satisfying than the promise of an eventual undergraduate degree in Information Technology.

Yeah, yeah, I know. It’s childish to think in terms of immediate rewards but sometimes the present is your only focus. Thinking too much about your future is futile.

Recently, I’ve discovered that no matter how much time, money, patience, hope, and support you lend, some things are just simply not in your realm of control.

Classes are out; finals over. The campus is empty and our “food” debit (in quotes because we honestly used it on so much more than just food) is gone. If only RIT had a normal break schedule, I just might get to see people from back home. There’s enough work to do moving into the new house though!
Now it’s time to find a co-op for the summer.

While everyone else from my high school class is finished with school for the year, I’m still working hard on final projects, “studying” for finals, and writing papers. Well, tomorrow I present my Programming III final project with Jason and then I’m officially finished for the year. Freshman year of college was a larger challenge than I could have ever imagined, but in hindsight it was ultimately the most enjoyable year of school I’ve ever had. The people that you meet and the coursework that you do doesn’t compare to the mundane tasks of high school.
Also, I’ve officially started my new job at the Information & Technology Services department on campus. The work environment is very professional and yet extremely laid back at the same time. I like the work I am doing and I have met a lot of very knowledgeable people even just two weeks in. I will be spending the majority of my summer on campus (40 hour work weeks) working for ITS so I suppose it’s only suitable to like the people I’m with. I guess the days of part-time work are over.

As usual, the My.RIT webportal has a poll running which regards a “taboo” issue. These polls often affect the student body; Other times, these polls are simply useless opinion polls about popular culture and entertainment. However, I was surprised to find this question being posed considering the placement:

I’m assuming that the 14% of people who did answer “yes” to the question were either faculty or students who didn’t understand the question. Peer-to-peer file sharing is a growing and ever-changing outlet for retrieving movies, music, and more. Regardless if the file sharing that is occurring is violating copyright, it is not RIT’s responsibility to make sure these copyrights are being upheld. It is the responsibility of the copyright holder – in this case the RIAA, MPAA and major software development companies.