My Goodbye

     This will be my last blog post for my IS101 class, and I want to tell you all about my experience. What the class sessions were like, my professor, and my classmates.

    In the beginning, things started off quite rough for me. Even though I was succeeding and was one of the lead student, I was struggling. My mental took a hit. My first phone call with my professor made me cried. I felt stupid. I understood that he wanted me to gain an independence, but I wasn't used to this. I've always followed directions in school, so this was a challenge for me to get used to.

    Gaining independence was something that was seen throughout the semester. All the assignments were to teach us how to do things on our own. It taught us different work scenarios and what the real business world would be like. Though we could get help, if we were to ask for it. I'm someone who likes to struggle on my own first. I didn't like to ask for help too much. I like to do things my way which was why I struggled so much on certain assignments. Very stubborn hahaha! But as time goes on I learned how to pace myself in class. That was key to my success.

    All of the class sessions were very friendly and relaxed. My professor is a very understanding person and I see how much he cares. He just wants everyone to succeed. Throughout the 16 weeks, I get to learn about my classmates and their lives. The cultures, interests, and similarities. I never say much in class, but I like these people a lot. They're very sweet. Their passion and diligence pushed me to work hard too (I'm very competitive).

    Due to the friendly competitions, I surprised myself with how much I accomplished in this class. Originally, I wanted to just pass the class with the bare minimum. I wanted to do what was required and not what was best in my interests. Today I am proud to say that I went above what was required of me, and did what is best for me and will continue to benefit me in the future. So goodbye IS101. Until next time.

Master of My Slides

     Slide Master was the most challenging PowerPoint lesson for me. It just confuses me all the time, though I find it to be a very useful function. I essentially feel as though I'm customizing my very own template. I can take things much further with this function.

    I plan to attempt to master this function again once I get the chance to create a new presentation for school. Hopefully I will remember these lessons when that time comes. I must concur this beast! 

Do it for me Excel!

     I love AutoFill! This is such a useful function to have. I don't have to keep typing the same thing over and over again in different cells. Not only does this function create a pattern for me, I can create my own patterns and it will recognize it! It help saves a ton of time and energy needed to put into a spreadsheet. I can't imagine having to sit down for hours throughout the day just to try to complete one spreadsheet.

    It's currently what I love most about Excel as of now. I use it all the time to get through the lessons. Once I have the opportunity to use Excel outside this class, I strongly believe that I will continue to use this lovely function to aid me in my works.

Editing My Essays

     Before this lesson, I didn't know that Microsoft Word could do so much! I knew it could autocorrect words and do some grammar checks, but I didn't know it has a thesaurus and word replacements. These are such useful functions when it comes to editing documents. 

    I have yet to use the word replacement function, but did dabble into thesaurus when I wrote my last essay for my English class. I'm not great with word, but I always have ideas. This function has helped me find the best word to use when writing an essay. It made me sound a little bit smarter hahaha!

    I would love to use the word replacement function in the future because it's really cool. Though, that would mean I made some major mistakes in my assignments. Very satisfying to use it in the lessons at least!

Printing Options

     I used to struggle with getting my documents to print the way I want it to. I would go back and adjust a lot of things to get it right. After learning about printing functions, I have an easier time printing my documents. Before this I never knew that I can just adjust things from the printing settings. I can just select print certain parts of the documents rather than deleting things and printing multiple times.

    Before learning about this chapter, I thought I knew it all about printing a document. What is there to it right? It's just printing out papers. Wrong. There's so many functions I can choose from. I was truly shocked when I was studying this chapter. This had helped me save a lot of time, papers, and frustrations. 

Different Programming Languages

        In this chapter, they went into the basics of different programming languages. I take a free computer science class outside of school in my free time. I'm still very new, so learning about all the new information from this chapter helps me decide which programming language I want to invest my time studying. 

        I first started learning about the language "C". In this video, they talked about how the different languages are used for different purposes. From now on, I can better pick which language I want to use to achieve the best result for my work.

The Importance of Internet Safety & Security

      I was someone who didn't really care too much about scam emails, or was too careful about revealing personal information when I'm in public. I thought, "well I don't really have anything important for anyone to care about stealing them anyway". But I really should've been more careful. I can tell which emails are scams when they're really obvious, but sometimes not so much.

     After learning about internet safety and security, I began to take more precaution when it comes to my information. This specific chapter has taught me new knowledge of a topic I previously thought I knew all about. There are so many ways these scammers can steal information from you. I can better differentiate which email comes from a trustworthy source, and which doesn't.

    One thing I learned about internet safety and security is how cookies is used to track our activities and make our experience more meaningful. Speaking of cookies, let's talk about ube cookies!

      This is my first time baking any kind of cookies ever! I was a little nervous as I usually bake things from a boxed mix, but I wanted to try to make something new. I planned to give these cookies to my mother's chiropractor as he had been very helpful with her recovery from a shoulder injury. We're very thankful for all the staff's help thus far and wanted to give them something that would show our appreciation.

     I was on YouTube one day, scrolling through my recommended page, when I came across a video that caught my attention, "Best Ube Cookie Recipe | Soft Baked With Coconut and Without Ube Jam!". Usually a soft baked ube cookie requires ube jam in their recipe, but not this one! Ube jams are pricey and have lots of sugar inside. I wanted to make cookies that would suit my mother's and the medical staff's Asian palate, and this YouTube recipe seems to answer my desires.

     I started to make my very first cookies. I was quite skeptical as I followed the recipe. "Why doesn't my cookie batter look like the one in the video?", I thought to myself, but I was hopeful that beginner's luck would save the day. I chilled the cookie batter for the night and let Jesus take the wheel. I woke up the next morning feeling hopeful as I started to bake the cookies. My oven light was broken, so I couldn't see what the cookies looked like while they were baking.

     It was time to finally take out the cookies. They did not look as I had hoped they would, though they smelled delicious. My mother came over to take a look at things, and poked one of my cookies to check if they were cooked. To my surprise, they were cooked! I felt a sense of relief. My mother immediately picked one up and had a taste. She approved.

     I gave the freshly baked cookies to the medical staff and a couple of my friends. They also approved. I have always had a hard time accepting people's compliments, let alone believing them. I have baked them on a couple more occasions, and finally I started to believe that I bake good ube cookies.

My First Week of College

     It's been 1 week since I started college. It has been a little overwhelming, but I'm really starting to get the hang of things! Can't wait to see what the rest of my college experience as well as IS101 will be like! I am currently pursing an associates degree in computer science. I ideally want to transfer the credits from CSN to UNLV after receiving my Associate of Arts in Computer Science.

     One thing that I want to get the hang of is organization. I'm beginning to realize how much organization and making a strict schedule will help with my future college experience. I've been watching a lot of YouTube videos which I use as reference to help with organizing my studying as well as organizing meetings with my friends and when I have classes.