Leanna Garner

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Ending the First Term at WGU: Thoughts and Things I’m Looking Forward To

Reminiscing

Last November didn’t seem too long ago. I remember the first day of class at WGU, excited to begin taking notes and learning new things.

But when the days pass as if they were hours, that seems to be the case. I remember coming in with the hopes that I could miraculously finish twenty-one classes in the span of 180 days. It’s an admirable goal, but I didn’t expect all of the courses that I came across to be as difficult as they were.

In hindsight, I think this was the right thing to do: to not rush.

Some of these topics were genuinely interesting, like Computer Architecture, which I somehow did pass rather quickly (in ten days, granted the course did not test on very specific things). I think I found an appreciation for math after taking Discrete Math, and I’m looking forward to the Data Structures and Algorithms classes.

For some of these classes, I spent about 20-30 days on. Perhaps I didn’t need to do that for some of them, but I didn’t want to take the exam or submit the project and forget the material the next day. I admit I might’ve done that for Computer Architecture (despite just saying it was probably the most interesting class I did), but I’ve kept it in my heart.

Thinking About Dual-booting

While going through the Linux course, I began falling in love with typing the commands out. I appreciate this simplicity. I believe it’s very productive; it definitely would’ve been faster to create the entire structure for my appAcademy Open directory in Obsidian in Bash over having to right-click and do “Create New Folder” a hundred times in the Obsidian app…

CentOS (the one used in the Udemy course) isn’t the prettiest distribution. I did install Fedora on a separate virtual machine to try to mess with it, but my computer is limited on RAM. I’m not sure if it’s because of the motherboard or the RAM sticks themselves, but I will get around to upgrading the sticks since I feel like the motherboard has the issue. I’ll look for 16GB ones, should the motherboard accept that size.

However, I re-enabled WSL back on my machine and I’ve reduced the RAM it’s allowed to eat up (a whopping maximum of 2GB, down from the 8GB it was earlier, since by default it sets it to 50% of your computer’s amount of RAM). I can’t have the WSL service and a Linux virtual machine running at the same time, so if I want to fiddle around in Linux down the road, I will do so when I configure dual boot with an old SSD.

Jobs?

I am definitely going for a part-time job. Perhaps at a restaurant or nearby grocery store would be fun since it deals with people, and I have that need to at least be around people for the part of the day. I’m also looking at the potential for remote gigs, but I’m not one-hundred percent sure if I can simply start doing one without any prior experience, like being a virtual assistant.

My main goal is to have some income coming in to begin paying off school and have time on the side to go through the appAcademy Open curriculum and other learning endeavors I decide to go on. I enjoy AAO’s (appAcademy Open) curriculum so far, so I’m going to do my best to continue on with that.

Other Learning Endeavors?

I’ve recently started a 30-day trial on TurkishClass101, which was only $1 and grants Premium membership for a month (which is what I call the 30-day trial).

Personally, I haven’t been written any notes for what I’ve listened to far, and I probably should, but I just love to listen to them speak. There’s something pleasing about how the language sounds, and in each lesson so far, it looks like they include some notes on culture.

When I have money set aside for school, I would like to subscribe to their premium program for a year; they have many promotional codes going around, but for JapanesePod101, owned by the same company, there’s one called “VIP65” which will provide a 65% discount: if you buy the two-year subscription for the Premium (not Premium PLUS, which is the one with actual tutors), I believe it’s $80-90, instead of the usual $240. If you’re committed, I’d say to give it a go.

Note: I think the discount code works for any language. They have a bunch (all under Innovative Languages).

Going Back to the Topic of AAO…

Their curriculum seems good so far, but there’s just so much that I want to learn. I am not too sure if their curriculum includes data science and machine learning, but I could probably learn that on my own, right? WGU does have a course on AI so I think I may learn something in there that will satisfy my thirst for knowledge.

I’d be happy with web development, which looks like what AAO focuses on. That’s what got me into coding, even though I was utterly frightened by it when I changed my mode to “code” in DreamWeaver CS3 when I was eight or nine years old. That’s where all the power was. The drag-and-drop stuff could only get me so far.

But to finally break past just HTML and CSS, and to finally learn JS? I’m absolutely excited for it. I eventually want to make my own theme for this website, so I think the curriculum will help in giving me the tools to do it.

Books Reading” by Aaron Burden/ CC0 1.0

On Writing…

Sometimes, I feel like Konvert just has a very weird direction.

I am the one writing it so I am the one at fault, but I often ask myself, “What are you doing, Leanna?”. This isn’t an issue because I don’t plan every single detail out ahead of time, but it’s just the stylistic choice I think that bugs me.

I’m practically denying myself the enjoyment of how I like to narrate since I have to narrate in the character’s voice, which isn’t really that appealing at first. This is an experiment in a way. Can I accurately showcase how time and love can change a person? We’ll find out when I finish the manuscript and do a complete read-through.

This book feels rather drawn out with the dialogue that takes place, but I can ensure there is a reason for all of the dialogue to be happening.

What Next?

Hoping to find a job in May and start in May or June. I don’t want to start in July and then juggle trying to get back into the rhythm of work and school at the same time.

I’m bound to find something. I just need to spend around 15-20 minutes on an application and push “apply”, and I’ll hear back!