IT150 @ Carlow

On November 15, 2010, IT150 students had the wonderful opportunity to tour the City of Pittsburgh Information Systems Department with city CIO Dr. Howard Stern.

During the tour Dr. Stern passionately discussed the mission of his department, the various functional areas, and the emerging technologies that the city has adopted to make public safety processes more efficient and effective. Such emerging technologies include – server virtualization, virtualized desktops, potentially cloud computing. We also learned about the city’s impressive disaster recovery capabilities.

It was a wonderful tour! I hope you enjoyed it

I think we can all agree that IT150 is not a blow-off course.  Even though everyone was forewarned that this class would be a lot of work, I don’t think anyone really understood the extent of how hard this class would be, or else most people would have opted out of it.  Within the first week of class we were given assignments that, much to everyone’s surprise, took hours to complete.  Those of us who waited until the last minute to complete these assignments quickly learned that this would not work for this type of class.  As time passed it became common for the majority of the class to be in the lab an hour before class, getting extra help or trying to complete the assignments due for that day.  Although the homework led to a lot of late nights, eventually I learned how to manage my time to complete them.  This helped with my time management skills.

Once we started the Google AdWords project, it became clear that this class was going to be extremely hard.  Not only did we have to do the regular assignments, but now we also had to do the work for the AdWords campaign.  One good thing about the Google project is that it does look good on resumes, but at times the tasks did become complex.

For any students considering IT150, I will share some information that may have helped me had I been aware in the beginning of the semester.  It is imparative that all of the assignments are at least half way completed the night before they are due, or else you will be up until morning trying to figure them out.  It is always a good idea to read the text carefully, not only does this help with the quizzes, but it often times relates to either the project or the homework in some way.  I do think this class is interesting, but I probably would not recommend it for a person who has absolutely no interst in technology, or a person with extremely basic computer skills because this could create problems.

Overall, this class forced me to work harder, and manage my time more wisely, and anything that allows me to do that is worth taking, in my opinion.

Gabrielle Ilochi

To be completely honest, I – like most of you – only took Information Technology I at Carlow University in the Spring semester of 2009 because it was part of my major’s requirements.  I didn’t even know what Information Technology was when I registered, but I figured my first semester classes were pretty easy and I’d be able to fly through this course too.

I was wrong.

When I walked into the classroom the first day, it was almost full.  By the next class half of those students had disappeared.  Rachel had spent most of our first meeting warning us about how much work we were going to get and it scared some of the students away. I, on the other hand, didn’t believe her.  I’d heard that so many times before and it always turned out to be an over exaggeration.  Again, I was wrong.

IT150 is a lot of work, but for what you get out of it, it’s completely worth it.  In the beginning we got packets of homework assignments almost every class and I spent hours each night just trying to get it done in time for the next class.  Then on top of that, the Google project was added and we had to do even more work every day.  It was hard and stressful and I didn’t always agree with the workload, but in the end, it was useful.  I don’t think there is one thing in any of those assignment that I won’t use again in the future or that won’t give me an advantage and put me ahead of other people in the workforce.

I liked the hands on work we did with Microsoft Access and Excel and the in class exercises.  I also liked learning about the different Information Systems businesses use in the background to help themselves improve and the other little things we learned like how the internet works, Google’s various useful applications, and how to read database language.  The Google AdWords project was a lot of work and could be really confusing sometimes, but it was fun to work with a real business and real money and it really gives you a lot of experience and a great advantage.

If I had to give advice to any future students all I would say is don’t give up and don’t slack off.  It’s a lot of work and it’s going to stress you out and overwhelm you, but I think that what you get back from it is the dealbreaker.  Not only will you learn inside the classroom, but also outside of the classroom because it’ll teach you how to teach yourself, how to learn from your mistakes, and it will really get you ready for the workload that you’ll face throughout the rest of your college experience.

The best thing that you’ll get from this course is a competitive advantage.  Of course you only touch on things like Access and Excel, DreamWeaver, information systems, HTML/database language, and various other useful things, but you can build on those skills and use them to your advantage in your career because there aren’t a lot of other people out there who are going to know what those things are let alone how to use them.  I bet you’ll meet plenty of employers who have no idea what Google AdWords or Google Apps are and might not even know what information systems are and because you do, you’re going to stand out and they’re going to want you.  IT150 is tough, but like I’ve said before, what you learn from it will continue to help you throughout your career.

So I walked into IT150 on January 13, 2009 with an open mind, and no expectations. After listening to the instructor’s overview of the class I was in shock. I had no idea how I was going to have the time to complete the assignments, especially to the best of my ability. In the beginning of the course we mainly focused on forming our groups for the Google On-line Marketing Challenge. This was a stressful time because this group assignment runs the entire length of the semester. After that part was over, the work started. We had to pick a client to work with, and begin thinking about a campaign that would advertise for this company. The hardest part of starting this challenge was balancing the group work with our individual assignments. I will admit that during the first 3 or 4 weeks of the class I was majorly stressed. The work never seemed to stop and the intensity only seemed to grow. After forming the campaign and keeping up with the assignments, it was time to present our campaign to the class and a few guest judges. I was very nervous, because I was new to on-line advertising and I felt as though I would be judged as a professional consultant. The presentation went alright. The judges gave reasonable help and a few gave us some really good ideas. As the campaign got started the assignments seemed to spread out, and get a little easier at the same time. At about the time of spring break, things seemed to be going alright. Now that we are only a few weeks away from the end, I am proud of the work that I have accomplished in this course, and it is something that I will never forget.

Although the class is a lot of work, it is easy to succeed in because the instructor helps you with anything that you need help with. She is available pretty much anytime of the day through e-mail, or Google chat. She is usually just a short click away.

One thing that you must understand when taking this course is that you are going to come out knowing a good bit about technology and how it all works, but you are going to come out knowing a whole lot more about yourself. This course forces you to push yourself to your maximum potential, which is something that we all need at some point in our lives. IT150 truly showed me what I am capable of, and just how much I can accomplish when I set my mind to it. Never in my life did I expect to do an on-line marketing campaign for a client that actually may affect the success of their business.

How much new knowledge and insights can we gain from following, not 100, but 100,000 kids from before birth to the time they complete college? One of the most ambitious government research studies launched in January 2008 promises to offer exciting opportunities for new scientific discoveries by 2030 when babies born new begin to graduate from college.  Read the rest of this entry »

[image source: http://farm1.static.flickr.com/151/383797276_b81e232f4b_m.jpg]

If you’ve ever built software, you would realize how easy it is to make errors. Building software is like trying to communicate with robots with a foreign language. When we learn a foreign language, we often make grammatical errors, silly pronunciation mistakes, etc. The human ear is amazingly tolerant of these minor errors. Usually we can get our point across OK despite minor speech imperfections.

Creatures like robots or computers are not as forgiving as humans. Read the rest of this entry »

[image source: http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2030/2245257904_441f0952a7_m.jpg]

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Do you like Google?

If you do, 2009 Google Online Marketing Challenge is great way to be part of the Google party and to earn the most fashion-forward accessory for your resume!

Please let me know if you’re interested! Read the rest of this entry »

Imagine carrying three or four of your massive textbooks with one hand tied behind your back. Magic trick? Extreme biceps conditioning? No, something even better! Amazon.com, a favorite model for our IT150 course, has come up with yet another innovation which will transform the book publishing industry. It’s called Kindle, a wireless portable reading device with instant access to over 190,000 books, blogs, newspapers, magazines and (soon to come) college textbooks. Read the rest of this entry »

Who in the world made yummy robots? 

It was Mickey, in Pittsburgh!

Mickey McManus, CEO of MAYA, is giving a talk on November 7, 2008 from 1pm to 2pm. Go with me and get 5 extra credit points for writing a blog post about the talk. RSVP is required so act now!

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