Lindsey Campbell

It has been waaaaay too long since my last update, but my life has been crazy.

I am making a pact to myself, now, at this very moment, that I am going to update this blog AND post USEFUL information.

A lot has happened. I graduated from Stark with my Associate’s with “Distinction.” I also started a web programming internship back in …April? at WRL Advertising. Hurray for me! The internship is a lot of fun – I have started learning Ruby on Rails. And, alas, I am glad to have finally gotten my associate’s! Now on to Franklin for my bachelor’s…

Anywho. As promised, I will blog more about this soon. I think I am actually going to make a helpful programming post! :O

I just got hired at Stark for a work-study position working for Larry Ray in the IT Department. Woot. I am excited, because the hours are extremely flexible (which I need because of school). Also, it will be great experience and such. I start on the 24th.

I have been trying very hard to make my site, or anything relating to ME, show up first on Google when you search for me. I finally did it~

I have actually, finally made progress on my site. Wow. It only took me about one year to finally get around to doing something! I have the essential layout done and my home and contact pages up. I just need to get started on the rest of the pages, change the colors up on this blog a little to match, and then get started on tutorials (we’ll see how that one goes!).

I have one week left in my SQL Server class – one assignment and a midterm. I should probably get started on those~ Then I have about four weeks until the start of fall classes; I will be glad to have that small amount of time for leisure before school. I am also applying for an IT work-study position at Stark, hopefully I’ll get that.

I also got a new kitten named Ponyo and she is so cute.

New kitten~ Ponyo!

I have not been up to anything. -_- Aside from homework, housework, and a little bit of reading, I have been doing nothing exciting. I was feeling extremely motivated one day and decided to work a bit on we love moe; I got a lot done but there’s still so much more to do. Not to mention, working with Joomla is obnoxious. Part of me wants to just scrap it and start over and build my own CMS, I just don’t know how to yet. So I will have to make do. Ah well. I just felt like I should update.

So, I am trying to work on actually getting content on my site. Weird, I know. So I figured I would start with the blog and go from there. I am planning on putting up the “About” and “Contact” page ASAP. From there, I will do the “Portfolio” and “School Projects.” After all that is done, I will worry about starting my tutorials.

I am also trying to get some more done with www.welovemoe.com. We were also wanting to do some more with Zetto Zonbi sometime. But alas, we are college kids and generally have no time.

Anywho, will update more later.

Alright, so I am finally getting around to actually blogging about the advisory committee. It went really well. We were all dressed fancy~ (haha). Luckily we all showed up early to get things set up, because Valerie’s computer wouldn’t run Trent and Alex’s game correctly (I don’t feel like getting in to the explanation there – it just didn’t), but the other laptop that was there didn’t have Firefox on it (and the site I was presenting doesn’t look perfect in IE. So we had to do a computer-swap after Trent and Alex’s presentation.

We were all really nervous, but we made it through. Trent and Alex presented together, so they had to go a bit longer. They had a Power Point, a program Trent created that helped make the game, and then their Game Demo, which was awesome. I think everyone was really impressed with it.

We switched computers. The presentations were kind of weird because we had to look up at the projector screen to see what we were doing, and the computer was running on duel screen mode so we had to move the mouse to the right of the projector to get it back to the laptop and it was just a mess. Haha. Then Felicia went. She was really nervous, but did well. Then it was my turn, woot. It was hard making sure I was talking loud enough, making sure I made at least a little eye contact, and working with the weird computer, with 23 other people staring at me. Apparently I did well, they all seemed impressed, and a lot of the web designer guys asked me some questions (about what troubles I had, what resources I used, etc.)

Blah blah, we all went to lunch. I met a couple of really cool people: Dennis Warner, the Internet Director at WRL; Brendan Cullen, Nate Klaiber, who offered to buy me a book (which is really awesome of him); Paul Ferris from Rosetta; there were a couple of guys from Diebold, and a couple from The Karcher Group, as well as some of my teachers. We had a lovely table going of web developers who were all about Open Source, which was fun; we also talked a lot about what qualities programmers should have and their experiences and such. There was a lot of good insight and information if you read, or listened, between the lines.

So it all went well. It was fun and I met good people.

I think that it is extremely lame that I got an email from FAFSA, saying that changes are being made to Financial Aid, and just in case funds are low make sure that I apply for scholarships.
So I clicked the links to look at them (the suggested scholarships) and everything is discontinued as of school years 2009-2010. Wow. How crappy is that?

I tried looking around for scholarships specific to women in IT or web development or something, or women in careers dominated by men. Pretty much all I found was, “Yay, be a nurse!” scholarships. I think I did find one, but it had to be a private institution, certain scores on ACT/SAT, etc. I didn’t take ACT/SATs and I am not enrolled in a private institution. Go figure. They should have a need-based scholarship, blah blah blah. Done ranting.

The Stark State College IT Advisory Committee went well. I will post a blog about it later. Valerie seemed happy about it, and I met a lot of nice people.

I have a habit of making extremely long blog titles, don’t I?
So anyways, my last final was today at 8:00 AM. I kind of didn’t really have to take it. I would have had a “B” in the class if I didn’t take it, but I think if I get at least a C on the final, then I will have an A in the class. So that leaves me with the final grades of: 5 “A”s and 1 “B.” Go me.

Now I get a break for like a week, then summer classes start. Haha. I am only taking one online summer class, though. It shouldn’t be too bad.

Anywho, this summer I am hoping to accomplish two things with this site:
1: I would like a better layout.
2: I would like to actually put content on here that matters, haha.

I wanted to make this blog with tutorials and stuff for web design, I just had WAY too many classes this semester and no time at all. So hopefully I’ll work towards getting something accomplished.

Also, the Stark State Advisory Committee meeting is May 12. I still have to finish up the site I am working on.

This last month I have moved, had midterms, and a lot of homework since it is nearing the end of the semester.
If anyone cares, my midterm grades are as following:
Web Development: A (shocking)
JavaScript: B, I was a point or so away from an A.
Database Modeling: A
SEO: A
Algrebra: A
Visual Basic: A

Whoo~
Go me!
*ahem*

Anyways, the point of this blog was for me to complain a little bit (big surprise) and follow up with a good-news announcement. Complaint first of course! ;P

I was sitting around the C building (IT building at Stark, if you are not familiar with it) doing some homework at about lunch time today. My friend was across from me, also doing homework. He mentioned something about hating it when another particular student always asks him for help in his Actionscript class immediately after they receive an assignment, before the student even tries to do it on his own. (I have decided not to mention any names so that I am technically not talking about “certain” students or something. For all you know, I could just be making this up.) I agreed that I hated it when someone asks me for help when they don’t show up for class and don’t try to do the assignment. There are people in my Visual Basic class who do that. The *worst* class for this was Programming Logic. I tried helping two people once, and ever since then, they constantly approached me and expected me to do their homework for them. I tried to be a teacher, kind of, and ask questions so that they would answer and learn, but it never worked. I ended up having to just tell them that I didn’t know and not help them. I mean, they even copied my variable names! You obviously don’t understand what you’re doing if you think your code has to be exactly like mine.

What got me a little irritated today was later on, after the above occurred, I heard the same student talking to his classmate. They were talking about how they have NO IDEA what to do for their assignment (I *think* it was to make a die roll or something in Flash using Actionscript, I am not really sure. I’ll have to ask.) and they were laughing about it.

The conversation was something like the following:
Person 1 – “Hey, I was going to call you. What are you doing for our assignment?”
Person 2 – “Haha, I was actually going to ask you. I don’t even know.”
Person 1 – “Yeah, I really need to figure this out. Dude, are you even trying in this class?”
Person 2 – “Haha. No!”
Person 1 – “Hah! Me either! *laughs*”
Person 2 – “No, dude, all you have to do, is take that person’s code. You know, the UFO thing, and just change the names. Of, like, the classes.”
Person 1 – “Oh? Really?”
Person 2 – “Yeah. That’s what I did. Dude, you don’t even have to know what the heck it does.”
Person 1 – “*laughs*”
Person 2 – “Yeah, it’s awesome. I have no idea what all that code means, but it works.”

End of conversation.

I had another conversation with a different student who is in the Web Design major (I am pretty sure, anyways). He is taking Internet/Intranet Design and Development, which is essentially (X)HTML and CSS. He said that their assignment was to make a form. He said that he was having trouble getting them to line up.
Me – “Well, most people use tables or divs. You should be able to do it really easily. Are you allowed to use tables?”
Kid – “Yeah, we can. I just…I don’t know. I didn’t pay much attention and I slept through class, so I don’t know how to make tables.”
Me – “…”

Are you kidding me?! Like you can’t just Google that crap?!
Sigh.

Also, Felicia always talks about how in her Illustrator class, everyone else uses that program (I cannot think of what it is called?) that traces the picture for you. She gets really mad about it because no one turns anything in until it’s late and they cheat.

It’s pretty lame that students can just do that. I mean, I work really hard in all of my classes. Okay, except for Algebra because it is so boring. =P But you know what?! I still have a B! And the B is only from me not double-checking problems in my homework because it’s lame! Haha.

Everyone at Stark that I talk to seems to have no idea what they’re doing. They’re in Web Development, but they don’t understand HTML and CSS. Not only that, but they pass JavaScript with a D- and shutter at the thought of taking PHP and MySQL. Some are in Game Development, and they cheat their way through Java and C++, earning just enough points to barely pass and repeat with the Advanced classes. There are a few people who are in Interactive Media and all they complain about is how stupid their Photography assignments are.

I mean, what do these people expect?
Web Development = the internet and programming
Game Development = some mad-skilled programming
Interactive Media = taking pictures of dumb things for money
You can’t just expect to be good at stuff. I mean, you have to be interested, you have to like it, and you have to try.
It just irritates me when students who do try their best and work their hardest don’t get the recognition that they deserve. I just had a lot of “OMG Are you serious?” moments today and it really made me want to complain about it. I mean, are these the kind of people that I am going to be working with in the future? Are these my colleagues? These people who honestly don’t know what they’re doing, don’t care what they’re doing, and just scrape by in life?

That said, I am proud to announce that I am one of the few lucky students (actually, I am not sure how many students will be there, haha =P) who gets to attend the Stark State Advisory committee. I have been asked to give a speech and presentation regarded Web Design in front of Stark State faculty and potential employers. I am actually very excited to be given this opportunity and I am going to try very hard. I have a tendency to go above and beyond in my Web Design assignments just because I think it’s fun and for the practice. Likewise, I get to use my final for the project, so I’ll have to make it extra awesome! I’ll post more news on this later: date/time, any new info, and how I’m doing on the project. I am also happy to say that two of my good friends have also been asked to participate, Felicia Perez (for Web Design as well) and Trent Reed (for Video Game Development). We are apparently the best of Stark State ~!

Meanwhile, I recently designed this site in Web Development for an assignment that is kind of “practice” for the final. I think it looks awesome, haha. It is a fluid 3 column layout, which means it will expand and contract with browser display size and content. I should probably post more things that I have been working on! I’ve been doing things that aren’t homework (haha) a little more often, now that we’re moved into the new house. So I will get around to it! I’m learning to do Sitemaps and RSS Feeds, so I’ll probably add them to Zetto Zonbi.

Last thing to note: I am switching from my JavaScript face-to-face class to Valerie’s online course because Deromedi is turning out to be a questionable teacher. =/ I think I will do a lot better/be more satisfied with an online course.