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First Exam
This week has by far been the busiest week yet of this semester. I've had meetings every single day of the week for various projects for classes and for my senior project. I also have the first exam of the semester tomorrow in my software engineering class. I wish that the exam could have been any day except for Friday! Usually I think of my Thursdays as the end of the school week and the beginning of the weekend because I only have one class on Fridays.
Anyhow, I haven't been able to study too much for the test because of how busy I have been this week. That means that tonight I have a date with my book and powerpoints so that I can do well on the test tomorrow morning. The test will actually not be a test on paper; it will be on the computer. That is kind of nice though because most of the questions will be multiple choice. Speaking of the test, I'd better go study! I can't wait until it is over so I can take a nap and enjoy a relaxing weekend after this hectic week. Have a great weekend!
Posted by Ashley on September 29, 2005 09:42 AM | Link | Email Ashley
Career Fair
Sometimes I wish that I wasn't a senior and that I could just stay at JMU a couple more years! It's scary being a senior because you have to start thinking about finding a job for when you graduate. I am actually getting ready to go to the career fair today that JMU is hosting. There are supposed to be about 115 employers attending. By going, you can give companies you are interested in your resume. It's also a good place to go and see what companies there are and find out information about them. They can also find out information about you, and if everything goes well some companies could possibly call you back for an interview. I would really like to find a job by the end of this semester so that I can enjoy the rest of senior year and not stress out about finding a job!
Well I've got to finish getting ready for the career fair, but since I haven't put up any pictures in awhile, here is one from the JMU game last weekend. It is of some friends and I with the Duke Dog!
Posted by Ashley on September 26, 2005 03:59 PM | Link | Email Ashley
JMU Nation
The JMU vs. Delaware State football game was this past weekend and it was awesome! I didn't go to a lot of the football games in years past because we were not that great, but since we've become National Champions, I plan on going a lot more. Before the game on Saturday I tailgated with some of my friends. Then we had to go to the stadium like an hour before the game began to make sure we got a seat! So many people go to the games now -- it is amazing! At the games they give you ThunderStix and streamers. The ThunderStix are these blowup sticks that you beat together and they make a lot of noise. The streamers you throw when the Dukes run out onto the field. It is so cool to see all the purple and yellow everywhere. There is so much more school spirit now. The best part is that we won the game 65-7. The fireworks after the game were also awesome!
So now that the weekend is over, I'm back in the daily grind of school. Things are starting to get busier now. I have a paper due in my next class that I stayed up writing last night. Being an ISAT major, that was one of the only papers I have written in about two years. Ask me to write a lab report and I can, but to write a paper is a whole other thing. Also, I had a quiz yesterday in one of my classes because the teacher feels like not enough people are coming to class. It was a very hard quiz even though it was open book. Deliverables for a lot of my group projects are starting to be due just about every week. This has meant a lot of group meetings. My first exam is also next week, so I need to start studying for that.
Even though I now have all these things to do, this year is still easier than last year. However, all this free time I've been having has made it hard for me to get motivated to do any of work I've had to do this week. I'll have to work on that.
I'm going to go meet my roommate and eat at Festival on campus for lunch now. Festival is the place to eat on the ISAT side of campus. It has a lot of good food choices!
Posted by Ashley on September 21, 2005 02:30 PM | Link | Email Ashley
So far, so good
It's the beginning of the third week of my senior year, and so far its been going great! By this time last year I would have already had so much work to do, but this year seems to be very different. I have a paper to write for one of my telecom classes that is due next Tuesday and a couple of projects to start thinking about, but besides that I seem to have more free time than I know what to do with.
Since I have all this free time, I am going to use it to start thinking about getting a job for after graduation. A great way to do this is through the Academic Advising and Career Development office at JMU. They provide on-campus interviewing and resume drops for numerous employers. In order to see if any employers will be coming to campus looking for someone in your area of expertise, you can sign up for a MadisonTrak account, which is a part of MonsterTrak. MadisonTrak allows you to search and see when certain employers will be coming to campus. Then all you have to do is submit your resume on MadisonTrak and you are able to pick a time to have the interview here on campus. I used MadisonTrak to go to a couple interviews for internships last year and it was good experience.
My senior project is also something I will have to start spending a large amount of my time thinking of. We had our first meeting last week with our teacher advisor. Part of the project will involve making a web interface for a database that was made this summer. The final project will most likely be a website that allows people to search the database to find information about water in the Shenandoah Valley or to find people who they can contact about water issues.
Its such a nice day today so I'm going to go out and enjoy it! Have a great week!
Posted by Ashley on September 13, 2005 08:57 AM | Link | Email Ashley
Class on Labor Day?
I'm sure most of you are enjoying the Labor Day holiday off, but not here at JMU! Unfortunately for us, we had class. It really wasn't too bad though, because I only have two classes today so I still had most of the day to do whatever I wanted.
Right now I am actually working on some internship stuff. I have the very last batch of Greensprings folders to index and put into the database. So as soon as I'm done with these folders, the project will be finished. I went through a lot of folders this summer!
All of my classes are still going fairly well. I haven't had any major homework to speak of yet; just some reading here and there. One of my classes has what the teacher calls "lottery questions" because he puts all of our names into a cup and draws peoples' names to answer questions. For that class I have to make sure that I get the questions ahead of time and have the answers ready just in case my name gets picked! I've never had a teacher use this approach to make people participate in class before.
This past weekend was the first JMU football game versus Lock Haven. We beat them hands down 56-0. Unfortunately I did not make it to the football game because I was sick, but I am so glad that we started the year off with a great win. I defitnitely plan to attend the rest of the home games if possible.
Other than going to football games, I still like to go to UREC and go running in my free time. A few of my friends and I are actually training to run a half-marathon in the spring. That is 13.1 miles! Yikes! However, it would be a great goal to accomplish, and as long as we keep up with our running, I think we can do it. JMU also has some 5K and 10K running events during the year, which we can do to practice running races.
Thats about it for today! Hope you had a great Labor Day holiday!
Posted by Ashley on September 5, 2005 08:34 AM | Link | Email Ashley
