#4 What did you see on your way to work/school/etc. (pick one commute)? (freewrite, 10 minutes)

I will be doing my freewrite on a commute that I did last Monday evening, a week ago today. It was just after the first Snowpocalypse, and the next blizzard was well on its way. My roommates and I really needed to get out to get a snow shovel, so we decided to brave the disasters on the road in order to make our way to Home Depot and the grocery store. On the way there we noticed just how horrendous the roads actually were. Not only were they not plowed at all, but they had been packed down so much that the snow had turned into sparkly, slippery ice. On our way to Home Depot we took note of the hellish conditions of the road and were astounded when we noticed a high snowbank that had been pushed up over a curve. This doesn't seem horrible with the amount of snow that we had, but this snow bank just happened to have a bunch of clothes and shoes peeking out from underneath of the snow. My roommates and I had been talking for days, seemingly joking about someone being pushed up under the snow by a snow plow, so this sight really frightened us and made us think twice about how bad the snow actually was. After some careening and sliding around the anarctic-like unplowed roads, we finally made it into Home Depot. Unfortunately for us, they were still out of snow plows, so that life-risking journey was really all for nothing. On the way back home, we happened to get stuck in the ice and snow in the parking lot. No one really wanted to let us out, they instead kept passing us and invading our space so that we couldn't back the car up. After some yelling we finally had our chance to get out, and we backed the car up quickly and gunned it with guns-blazing out of the parking lot. The rest of the trip home wasn't horrible, but it was still extremely hectic with the amount of people that were rushing to gather things before the next storm. It was almost like an apocalyptic sight that day. People were jockeying for anything they could get, both on the road and at the grocery store. Theres just something about that much snow in this area that really frightens people, and puts them on edge.

#2 What are your strengths? (freewrite, 10 minutes)

For the most part, I beleive that my main strenght that I will bring to my future career is my ability to work with a group. Although most people see programmers as lonely beings that just sit in their offices all day, it really is quite different from that. In most settings the programmers need to coordinate with many other people that are together as a single team. Most programming projects that you do in the real world are large, and need much more than one person working on them, and I believe that I would thrive in this situation. I really enjoy working with others on projects because it allows everyone to bounce ideas off of each other, meaning that everyone gets to learn completely new ideas and methods of doing things while the projects are done in a much better manner because of this.


Another strength that I will bring to my future career is persistence. Although it is quite hard to be persistent in college, I still manage to be persistent until I finish absolutely everything. Most of the time I like to do things in one grouping, and rarely do I like to stop and start again because i feel that it is much easier to get off track in this situation. This would greatly help in my future career as it will help my employer to get exactly what they want, a finished product. My employer will be able to count on my in any situation as I can guarantee that I will work my absolute hardest until I finish the task at hand.


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Another skill that I feel will be helpful in my future career would be the knowledge of the technical abilities that many Computer Science majors lack. Through most of the classes here at Mason, I have mostly learned things that will never come to help us in the real world. Luckily, some of the things I have learned will help me emensly when it comes to joining the workforce. Things like methodologies into the way that computer programmers get things done will really help, and it will better allow me to fit into any workplace that I am able to get into. Not only their methodologies, but the different methods of programming and the insight behind this will really help me in my career. Not only have I learned how to manipulate the programming code to work, but I am not starting to learn the methods of coding which would better suit a group environment.

Observation and Description Exercise: One Hour of Uninterrupted Listening (250-500 words)

For this assignment I made my way to the Reston Regional Library in Reston, Virginia.  It was just after lunch time when the library opened for the day.  I looked around for a good spot for quite some time, but in the end I settled for one of the larger tables that was near the entrance of the library.  This allowed me to hear so many sounds that I doubt I would've heard if I would have hunched up in the corner or somewhere secluded.

It was almost too riveting to step back away from the liveliness of humankind in order to focus on the sounds that we mostly disregard.  The majority of the sounds were typical technological sounds consisting of the annoying book scanners and over-sized jalopy copier.  Although all of the other sounds were emanating from people, these sounds seemed to press my patience the most and even began to give me a short-felt throbbing headache halfway through the process. Just the constant chatter and walking of most passerbys was enough to drive me completely insane in this small time frame.  I never completely realized how horrible people sound while they're walking until this point.  The constant shuffling of atrocious jackets, worn pants, and sky-rise heels over that cheap government carpet drove me crazy, and I doubt I'll ever be able to stand that noise ever again.

As if these annoyances weren't enough, it seemed like every parent in the immediate Herndon/Reston area decided to bring their children to the library for "I can read" day, which unfortunately caused a horrible ruckus.  I didn't quite realize how young they start out kids on computers these days.  There had to be a couple three or four year olds that just drove me nuts for the majority of the time.  As if the dreadful screams for their parents weren't enough, they just had to sit at the computers for what seemed like an eternity just complacently pecking at the keys and sliding their petite hands across the keyboard.

By doing this experience I learned that I get rather annoyed at many things that people do, but most of the time I just shrug it off to the point where it doesn't even bother me anymore. An example of a small thing that really irritated me was an older lady that took well over half of an hour of just cold-hearted pecking at the keys in order to accomplish her task.  Another noise that really annoys me, but wasn't so evident from this experience, was the unbearable swooshing noise that copiers make when scanning a document.  Luckily only two people came through to use this new-age piece of equipment, but it was still more than enough to poke and prod at my patience.

#4 Current Major and Career Goals (freewrite, 10 minutes)

My current major is computer science.  At the moment I cant really think of any hard-set career goals, but if I had to note one I would say that I really need to get an internship as soon as possible.  Not only will this help me to get my foot in the door with a computer related job, but it will give me the experience that many employers are looking for in the job market.  This is my goal because it will put me ahead of most students, and in the end I will look better and more qualified for most of the computer jobs on the market.  I will get there by looking around (in fact i've already started) and applying to internships.  They really don't have to be paid, because just like college, I am there for the knowledge and the experience.  Hopefully if I can do a good job there for a semester or year long internship, they will decide to keep me for longer, hopefully under a paid job.  Now that we're talking about goals, I have another long-shot goal that would be one of my dream jobs (in my ind).  I would really like to work at Google, doing pretty much anything related to computers because I really don't want to say that I'll specialize in anything particular at the moment.  Preferably I would like to work at the branch in Germany, which would be perfect since both my fiancee and I plan to live in Europe as soon as we get out of college if not sooner.  This is my career goal because from what I've seen it is the total dream job.  If you like computer related activities, this is the place for you as they have anything and everything related to computers and even some other things.  If the job type isn't right on the target, they offer amazing benefits to their employees that would make the work place so much more enjoyable.

My current major will fit into my plans perfectly.  I really want to work in the computer sector, and my major will fit into that category perfectly.  I hope that the training and knowledge that I am getting at George Mason will actually be of some help to me in the job place.  I know most people say that the things we learn in college are useless, and most of the stuff done in the real world job force are completely the opposite of what we've learned.

If i decided on a French minor, I think that it will greatly help with my current career goals and plans for the future.  If I really want to go to Germany to work, or even grad school, another language would be almost necessary.  I believe that even if I don't get to go to Germany, there are plenty of jobs and colleges in France that would fill my needs, meaning that the knowledge of the language would help me quite a bit.

In 5 years I see myself having a job, making a lower salary because I will just be at entyr-level status.  In both 10 ad 15 years I really see myself having a well paying job (hopefully) doing something I love, and hopefully by this time I will be completely proficient will all activities needed.