The Decision Tree

Working on a animation program for school today. The class it's for is a very basic visual programming program called Alice, and it's freely available for anyone who is interested through Carnegie Mellon or the Alice websites. What I like about it is that it provides visual representation of code objects, and the user merely applies the code.



The game I'm building is a visual word development game. It's really a first step at a wider project that I will take on after I graduate, and the possibility of jumping into the application development side of the world. Having an autistic son has made observations a life long experience, and if I baseline him on a scale of 6 to 7 on a scale of ten (with 10 begin the least severe), it would be something that could put my heart into without expecting much in return. That's kind of the way it is in the world we want for Jared, and we try to do things for the right reasons.




I am also working with Jared's CTS teacher on building better communication and tracking tools for the program, which has room for improvement. I felt that Jared learned the most in that environment, and I will continue to volunteer my support for a program that I can help shape.



Formal programming is somewhat vexing to me, but I function better with visual data. I have mapped the rest of my courses, but it's not clear if the courses will be offered in the sequence that maps to the prerequisites, some courses are offered every term, others are not. My academic counselor is looking into it now to see, the decision tree I am using will provide me with two courses of action:



Preferred Sequence:



* Visual Basic

* Web Site Design

* Web Server Design



Web Server Design is contingent on Visual Basic, and that course will not be available again until the January/February term. If I want to graduate after the March/April term, which I currently project, Web Server Design would need to be available that term. If not, I could take it the following term.



If I go down this path, the course



The alt Sequence:



* Object Oriented Analysis and Design

* Software Development in a Distributed System

* Artificial Intelligence or Intro to Linux or Visual Basic



This path would be geared more towards business applications, but there may be enough information that I can glean to build professional web server applications, as well as manage databases and reporting. I have straddled the fence on this, but my first choice is ultimately self sufficiency, and you can build web serves in your pajamas if you so chose.



My career counselor is steering me in the direction of graduate school, the degree program overlap is not something that is do-able if the programs cores are too similar. I am going to take next summer off from school before I make that decision, but I'm going to get a taste of the workload in the coming months.



On the bright side, besides the increase in email activity from employers and recruiters, I actually got a phone call from a recruiter about an executive position, although that can amount to lead janitor. I am actually grateful and I will reply tomorrow to get a feel for what it's really about. I have until October to decide, or accept that I will be poor until January.



I don't know, but for the moment, the future looks bright(er) than it has. This is always subject to change, but I'm seriously focused on the task at hand and the next few course sequences and graduation, which is on the horizon.
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