My name is Thomas Anderson, I currently reside in the city of Las Vegas. I am a student at the College of Southern Nevada (CSN). This will be my second semester at CSN.
My first impression of CSN was that high school students were able to go to CSN to complete an Associate's degree and graduate from high school at the same time. Coming from California, I believe it was never an option to do so, at least from where I lived. My first semester of CSN was completed online. I thought my professors were great, but I was disappointed with the lack of teaching coming from the professors. Most of the courses were self-study courses with the professor available for help through emails. Other than that, you had online textbooks to help you through school work. Without much guidance from the professors, I spent hours upon hours taking notes and reading textbooks. I don't believe this amount put into taking notes was worth it, not only because I hadn't learn much from them, it was also consuming my limited time in Taiwan for spending more time with family there. It wasn't all bad, I learned how to take notes efficiently, which has come in handy in a few courses I am taking now. I also kept the notes I had taken last semester on my computer, where I can look back on for classes that are the continuation of those courses (I can use notes I took from Accounting 201 and use them in Accounting 202).
My first impression of IS 101 is learning that it was a required course to complete my Associate of Business degree. My first impression of Professor Wu's IS 101 course was that he took the initiative to reach out to his students to personally get to know them. I have never met another teacher that took this initiative, especially before school starting. I was worried that this course had a lot of assignments, and it does. Although it has a lot of assignments, I believe they're do-able if we're constantly on our toes with these assignments and get ahead with any free time we have. I also believe Professor Wu will help us as much as he can without making it easy for us. Overall, I believe this course will help me grow not only in my knowledge of Microsoft Office, but also with getting assignments done in a timely manner.
The skill I chose was from LabSim. I've experienced the skill of digital privacy with the usage of social media in my personal life and connecting to public Wi-Fi networks. I learned throughout my time on social media to not argue with strangers and share any private information to a public online setting because you never know what this information will be used for. It is important to read the "Term of Use" of either using a public device or connecting to a private internet connection from an organization. My experience with this is actually connecting my devices to any business or school internet connection. These organizations want to make sure you're using their networks responsibly and warn you the consequences of not following the "Terms of Use" for their internet connection through your agreement with them before connecting to their Wi-Fi. I found out today that Blogger.com is blocked by the CSN Guest Wi-Fi connection.
College is definitely a step up from high school in terms of the choices you have, the level of education, and cost. I believe community colleges are underrated in terms of the level of education you're getting and how much it costs compared to a 4-year university. Finding the right professor for you is the most important part of getting the right education, along with your career choice. I'm grateful to have chosen to save money and go to a 2-year community college before transferring to a 4-year university.
