Fall Registration

As I've mentioned before, I am lucky that TSU lets non-degree-seeking grad students register with other grad students starting a day before all the undergrads. Last week, I sort of waited until the last minute to get my paperwork in to the graduate office, but I was fortunate to be able to catch Dr P in the math department in the evening on Wednesday to sign my forms and get everything in first thing on Thursday morning.

Today I enrolled in two courses:
Differential Equations MW 11:00 - 12:15
Calculus III (aka Vector) MW 12:30 - 1:45

Dr P teaches the Diff E class. (Apparently his schedule varies from semester to semester; this semester he was teaching all graduate courses, but he has said before that he likes to teach Calc 2 - his favorite - and Diff E sometimes.) I don't know the Calc 3 professor.

I had also been considering taking a programming course; there is a two-semester sequence in C++ that is the first year for CS majors. The class fit well into my schedule (9:30 MW with a lab that I could get at 2:00) but I am still not certain that I want to do it.

Pro: I know nothing about programming and would come out of this knowing something. Programming is a practical and useful skill in psychology since a lot of experiments are conducted via computer.

Con: I might want to fill up the time with a (part time) job and/or an independent research class. August is pretty far away and I'm not certain what exactly I will want to do. Dropping a class at TSU costs money (unlike at Rice) so enrolling on spec is kind of throwing money away.

I figured I would hold off on this for now. It may mean that I will decide to do it but the class will have filled up first. That's not a tragedy if it happens. Presumably, if I decide that I really want to learn some basic programming, I can get a book and the software and do it on my own. This would be cheaper than paying tuition, more convenient, and (if I am diligent) could result in my learning more due to being able to take a faster pace than the class is likely to go.