Hello dear readers!

This semester, in addition to three required CS classes, I am taking a class called the Classics of Social and Political Thought. In it, we read texts from ancient Greek philosophers to contemporary sociobiologists in an effort to answer the most crucial questions plaguing the human psyche from the beginning of time.

Hello dear readers! Hope this week finds you well! So, with finals week finally upon us, I decided to compile a list of study tips that have helped me through the years and why they do so. Enjoy!

1) Switch out what subjects you're studying 

Hello dear readers! I hope everyone had a wonderful and relaxing Thanksgiving break! My own was very fun, but studying and homework still crept in at the edges, as it does. However, I did notice a very interesting and cool thing that happened when I was actually working this past week.

As we rapidly approach finals week (*shudders in horror*), I've constantly been thinking about the amount of work I have to do and how much I have to study and all the extracurriculars I regularly have to commit to. In short, I, and I'm sure a lot of others, am drowning in stress.

But more than that, I'm terrified at even the prospect of failure in the upcoming weeks, mostly because I've had to face the reality of it many times during this semester. So I've also been thinking a lot about how to adequately deal with failure.

Hello dear reader!

So, in light of recent political events, I guess I've been thinking a lot about our government, and specifically where we as computer scientists fit into it.

In this age of ubiquitous technology, computer scientists should be in all areas and fields of study in society, because the expertise, experience, and perspective we would lend to any topic would be a unique and valuable one. However, the fact of the matter is, there is an extreme dearth of computer scientists in government, which is frankly, a tragic oversight.

The other day I was browsing (read: procrastinating) around and reading about what's new in the tech world when I happened to come across something that made me absolutely giddy.

First of all, some background info: I am a computer science major pursuing a certificate in environment and sustainability. Yes I know, the two are kind of completely unrelated but I was always something of a hippie so what was I to do? And until I saw this article, I did not have even an inkling of an idea of how I was going to combine these two fields, or even if I could at all.

Hello, dear readers! This week's blog is going to be all about the UTCS 50th Anniversary Celebration that took place last Friday, an event which I sincerely hope all of you got to witness, but if not, never fear, for I hope you can live vicariously through these words.

The second round of midterms are almost upon us and everything seems to be getting harder and harder. More homework, more projects, more obligations, it just keeps snowballing. It's barely two months in and I'm having to research classes for next semester and sign a lease on an apartment, and I barely know what a lease is. Just for reference, my color coded calendar, which I made at the beginning of the semester to be more efficient and productive, looks like a rainbow threw up on it.

This past weekend, I participated in a Hackathon, and it was quite possibly the most fun event I have ever been a part of. It was my first Hackathon and since I am pretty new to computer science in general, I was very nervous that I would have no idea what I was doing, and worse, drag my team down.

I know we're in the midst of a lot of people's midterm week and I can already feel the despair oozing out from everyone. I know this major can sometimes feel like it's way too stressful, especially in these coming days, with all the projects due and tests to take. And with all the stress comes all the doubts rushing in. I know I for one think a lot about whether computer science is the right major for me at all when I'm too stressed about computer science to be excited by it, or I can't seem to get something right that everyone else seems to be getting or some other such trivial thing that sends me down a dark spiral of angst and existentialism.