Computer Programming Course Results

Introduction to Windows	Completed in 3 days (2 days ahead of schedule).
97%

Windows '95	Completed in 3 days (2 days ahead of schedule).
96%

Visual Basic	Finished the course proper in about 4 days, then worked on a difficult project of my own devising for much too long. :) Built most of a flexible art sales database, without using any of the Jet database engine because the school wasn't licensed to distribute the Jet DB engine. Coded my own indexing routines and designed my own file format instead.
Exam: 98% Project: 100% Final: 99%

MS-DOS for Tech. & Prog.	Took a while because of the horrible, horrible text. I'm tempted to offer to rewrite it for the college, but I have enough projects going as it is.
96%

Assembler	I really enjoyed assembler. The project was to build a program to sort up to 26 letters using a bubble sort. I went all out and animated the whole thing with a fancy animated title to boot, all timed with the real-time clock to ensure a smooth 18 fps. My sorter is something of a legend at the school now.
Exam: 88% Project: 100% Final: 93%

C Programming	Had a lot of fun with this subject, built a really nice project too. Went from being called "Mister Assembler" to being called "Mister C."
Exam: 100% Project: 100% Final: 100%

C++ Programming	Enjoyed this even more than I enjoyed C. Really learned the value of templates and exceptions during my project since the compiler I used at home (on the Amiga) doesn't handle either fully yet. And the version of Borland we were using at school (4.x) didn't recognize the mutable keyword, which made my optimized linked list class just a bit less optimized. =/ C'est la vie. I'm skipping Systems Analysis and doing COBOL first.
Exam: 99% Project: 100% Final: 99%

COBOL	For all the bad things I've heard about COBOL, I didn't find it to be very difficult. I much prefer object-oriented programming, though. The practical part of the final exam had to be hand-written on coding forms which is something I hope I never have to do again.
Exam: 92% Project 1: 100% Project 2: 100% Project 3: 100% Final: 95%

Systems Analysis	Went a little overtime on this one; I found the subject interesting but the textbook pretty boring, and rather poorly written in many places. What is it with all these textbook forewords that promise to present the subject matter in an interesting and fresh way, then go on to do nothing of the sort? The test was 55 multiple-choice questions and lived up to its reputation for being tricky and by no means straightforward. I wrote the exam without feeling I'd fully prepared myself because I abhorred the thought of having to study the textbook another day.
91%

Excel	Completed in 1 day (4 days ahead of schedule).
96%

Access	I like Access. Kind of like Microsoft Query, Excel and Visual Basic all rolled into one. I took the full 5 days for this part so I could go beyond the course materials and explore some of the more advanced features.
96%

Access Programming	More fun stuff. Wish I'd had access to Access when I was at AT&T.
100%

UNIX	UNIX was a breeze. I like how everything fits together with pipes. The non-mnemonic commands kind of suck compared to AmigaDOS though. UNIX and AmigaDOS are a lot alike, but the AmigaDOS commands are easier to remember.
100%

Telecommunications & Networking	This was a lot more fun than I expected. I wasn't really looking forward to the networking part of the course because I didn't think it would interest me. But it did. The instructors are starting to get tiresome with their "so do you want to challenge this mark?" remarks. Such a witty bunch. :)
100%

NetWare Supervisor	This was one of the most feared subjects at the college because of the very difficult final exam (467 short-answer and True/False questions), meant to fully prepare us for taking the CNA test. Unfortunately I can't afford the CNA right now.
1st Exam: 99% 2nd Exam: 99% 3rd Exam: 99% Final Exam: 99.9% Final: 99%

Advanced Windows	Oops. I've been trying to get over 90% on all my subjects at CDI, but I went through this one a bit too quickly because I wanted to get into NT 4 as soon as possible. Ended up with 33 out of 37 on the exam. So close...
89%

Windows NT	Hurried through this one a bit because I started doing some contract work on the side in VB.
95%

Intro to Internet	Did this course in about two and a half hours...was my last subject and I didn't want to have to come back to school just to write the exam. The test was graded according to the outdated textbook and not according to our present reality, hence the (IMO :) low mark.
86%

*AVERAGE = 97%

Last modified: November 15, 2003
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