Research topics and silly car issues
Sep. 15th, 2004 02:24 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mandolinQuick update...
Took the car into the service center on Monday because of a slowly growing puddle in the passenger side whenever the air was on. Turned out the vaporator drain was clogged - they didn't charge me for clearing that out, although my car's not under warranty anymore. And my friends wonder why I still go to that service center. ;)
The downside is that if this starts happening on a regular basis, they may need to take the whole thing out and clean it out - which will NOT be free. Here's hoping.
Class is okay, but I've hit a bit of a dilemma: namely, the group project. Being one of the 10 grad students in the class, I need to pick a topic by September 30 and recruit and organize a group of undergrads. When handing in the assignment today, another grad student asked, "You haven't picked a topic yet??" Argh. No.
To refresh, the class is Data Communications and Networking, and we can pick pretty much any topic relevant to the subject. Since I know jack about the subject to begin with, I'm probably going to have to go with one of the suggested topics. Internet firewalls are taken, as is wireless networking.
Here's where it gets tricky:
1) I need to pick an available topic that isn't going to scare undergrads away - and one that's not going to attract the slackers.
2) The reason getting a group may be hard is because I need to have the final paper turned in by December 18th at the absolute latest. The due date is Dec. 22, the last day of finals. I don't have to worry about a final exam, but I know a lot of students are going to want the extra 3 days. But I'll be in North Carolina from the 19th to the 22nd, and that doesn't leave a lot of room for error. (And I'm not going to leave it up to the remaining group to submit the final paper, only because it's not fair to them with juggling undergrad finals.)
3) Most of the topics I've seen that I can find a lot of info on - IPv6, ADSL - are topics that I'm not sure would make a good paper. Even a survey paper, which is what this is, needs to have one or two central points.
4) I need to pick a topic ASAP so I can recruit group members early. And so the good topics don't all vanish. I'm leaning towards ADSL, but I don't know. I may wind up camping out in the library this afternoon to try and figure out what's available.
*sigh* I don't know what I'm going to do.
On a more amusing note, I discovered I am not the most oblivious person in class: a guy came up to the professor and said, "I thought we were supposed to turn in those exercises [the ones in the Lecture section]. I've never seen this [Assignment 2, which was just being turned in]. Where on the Blackboard is it?"
When you log into the online Blackboard for the class, the first thing you see is the big, bold, blue letters that say that all class assignments are under "Assignments." *sigh* The professor did give him an extra day.
More later.
Took the car into the service center on Monday because of a slowly growing puddle in the passenger side whenever the air was on. Turned out the vaporator drain was clogged - they didn't charge me for clearing that out, although my car's not under warranty anymore. And my friends wonder why I still go to that service center. ;)
The downside is that if this starts happening on a regular basis, they may need to take the whole thing out and clean it out - which will NOT be free. Here's hoping.
Class is okay, but I've hit a bit of a dilemma: namely, the group project. Being one of the 10 grad students in the class, I need to pick a topic by September 30 and recruit and organize a group of undergrads. When handing in the assignment today, another grad student asked, "You haven't picked a topic yet??" Argh. No.
To refresh, the class is Data Communications and Networking, and we can pick pretty much any topic relevant to the subject. Since I know jack about the subject to begin with, I'm probably going to have to go with one of the suggested topics. Internet firewalls are taken, as is wireless networking.
Here's where it gets tricky:
1) I need to pick an available topic that isn't going to scare undergrads away - and one that's not going to attract the slackers.
2) The reason getting a group may be hard is because I need to have the final paper turned in by December 18th at the absolute latest. The due date is Dec. 22, the last day of finals. I don't have to worry about a final exam, but I know a lot of students are going to want the extra 3 days. But I'll be in North Carolina from the 19th to the 22nd, and that doesn't leave a lot of room for error. (And I'm not going to leave it up to the remaining group to submit the final paper, only because it's not fair to them with juggling undergrad finals.)
3) Most of the topics I've seen that I can find a lot of info on - IPv6, ADSL - are topics that I'm not sure would make a good paper. Even a survey paper, which is what this is, needs to have one or two central points.
4) I need to pick a topic ASAP so I can recruit group members early. And so the good topics don't all vanish. I'm leaning towards ADSL, but I don't know. I may wind up camping out in the library this afternoon to try and figure out what's available.
*sigh* I don't know what I'm going to do.
On a more amusing note, I discovered I am not the most oblivious person in class: a guy came up to the professor and said, "I thought we were supposed to turn in those exercises [the ones in the Lecture section]. I've never seen this [Assignment 2, which was just being turned in]. Where on the Blackboard is it?"
When you log into the online Blackboard for the class, the first thing you see is the big, bold, blue letters that say that all class assignments are under "Assignments." *sigh* The professor did give him an extra day.
More later.
