Just Above the Tag Clouds
A look into the life and work of a software engineering woman.
Wednesday, February 13, 2013
Better Days To Come
However, this week my classes truly began with a dive into "Initiation à la cryptologie" at L'Ecole Normale Supérieure. I have nothing, but compliments for the professor of the class. I thought it was very well taught, and the material is something that I have always been interested in learning more about. Today I went to two more classes at l'ENS and even though I sat through six straight hours of classes I did not get bored or fall asleep (that might've just been my ridiculous caffeine intake this morning, but who knows).
So, as a note to advanced computer science students planning to study abroad: there is technology in Paris! In fact, the "grands écoles" are incredibly well-recognized in Europe and offer some interesting classes and very amiable students to work with. I couldn't stop smiling today; finally things are starting to look up!
I will also be starting a software engineering project with a group of 9 students at the ENS with Professor Vermorel (blog here: http://vermorel.com/).
Cheers to some interesting projects and knowledge!
Tuesday, January 29, 2013
Not a Tourist
Saturday, January 19, 2013
A Winter Afternoon
I have been a bit hesitant about using my usual approach to talk to people, which is just walking up to someone on the street and starting a conversation. My time in Paris thus far has been pleasant, and I think I may find the courage yet to approach more parisiennes. In the meantime I have taken many lovely pictures of the beautiful landmarks this city has to offer. Since I don't start class for another few weeks I will continue taking pictures and exploring cette belle ville. For those of you who don't know me personally I'm afraid you'll only be able to see a limited number of pictures from my trip, ie. those that caption my posts. It is much easier to just post all of my pictures in one location, namely Facebook, for now.
I start my first class next week, and for those engineers out there who would like to come to Paris do not fear! I have indeed found some interesting courses, eg. Initialisation à la cryptologie, Genie Logiciel, Analyse syntaxtique et compilation, Logique and many others. It takes a bit of extra work, but Paris is not completely lost in the arts.
A très bientôt.
Tuesday, January 15, 2013
La rue St. Paul
My apartment in le 4ème arrondissement |
La rue St. Paul |
The past few days in Paris have been absolute madness. The word of the week seems to be "jet lag". I had no idea how exhausted I would be after travelling over 4000 miles from Chicago to Paris! I seem to be falling asleep at odd hours (17H à 1H last night), and I'm exhausted from walking around the different arrondissements. Yesterday we explored the two universities from which we can select classes: l'université Sorbonne and Paris VII Didérot. For me it's not really a choice since Paris VII is the only university in the program that offers Computer Science classes, however, I have yet to find any classes at all in my specialization (artificial intelligence and secure systems).
I have to say, it's odd being the only engineer in the group. Besides myself there are 3 or 4 hard science and math majors that are also having difficulty finding interesting classes in the Educo program. It seems that the program is mostly geared towards those who are studying the arts...we'll see whether I end up finding anything in my areas of interest.
Besides academic discussion the program managers have also taken the time to give us an intense crash course in French grammar. This course has not been very effective due to my jet lag and general lack of desire to do school work (Cornell doesn't start for another week!), but I hope that it will help me improve a bit before the real school work begins.
Due to the rainy, cold weather yesterday I did not get a chance to explore the tourist attractions in Paris as I intended, but I hope that today will be better for exploring! I have already walked around le quatrième arrondissement yesterday to see what exactly my neighborhood has to offer and it is beautiful! The métro is also incredibly useful, since missing a train will only set you back less than 5 minutes. Incroyable! In Chicago, it's quite ordinary to wait 15-20 minutes for the L to show up, so I am very pleased that all of the rumors were true about the Paris train system.
I believe that is all for today, but I will make sure to post more once school starts next week. I'm excited to meet all of my fellow classmates and finally find some computer scientists in these neck of the woods.
For photos, see my album An American in Paris.
A word of warning to those who would like to study abroad in Paris during the spring semester. It is COLD here. I did not quite understanding what that meant until I got here, but it means this: two sweaters all of the time and scarves, all of the scarves.
Friday, January 4, 2013
On Studying Abroad
I figured that many of my family and friends will want to share with me in the experiences that I have while abroad, so I have decided to create a new section in this blog just for that purpose. I haven't been much of a blogger, but I think with this added photo component I will be a little less lazy about posting. We'll see.
Adieu Chicago! Paris, je te verrai dans une semaine.
Thursday, January 12, 2012
Sweeping Away the Dust
I knew from the moment I created this blog that I wouldn't be much of a blogger. It's a bit intimidating; writing my thoughts. I feel like I'm standing in front of a giant bulletin board trying to figure out the best location for a dull yellow Post-It same as all the rest. And it's been ages since I've written anything creative. I read some of the stuff I wrote as a child and think: wow, I wrote that? Well, here I am again. Thinking again. Writing again.
So I have recently been looking into building a mobile application for the Droid. I have a pretty sweet idea for something a bit fun that could be quite useful for users, but I'm having a little bit of trouble motivating myself to go on with the project. I have Eclipse with Android all ready to go...and I'll be willing to give some more details of the project once I get some code down.
After bombing my very first technical interview ever, and with Twitter at that, I have had trouble staying concentrated on this project. There's just so much I still need to learn and refresh my memory on about programming and data structures and concurrency and even with the internet at my fingertips there doesn't seem to be enough time to absorb it all! And now with February tech interview hell and school only a couple of days away I can really feel the pressure weighing me down..
Anyways, I'll try to be better about posting here. For now I leave you with expectations, and maybe I'll do another hackathon to crank out that app!
Nohemi
Sunday, October 16, 2011
Out of the Country- An adventure to Canada
The Summit was truly inspirational for me. It was a chance not only to meet the people I had admired over the interwebs, but also to become involved in the GNOME community. After the trip I wanted to work so much harder on my project (although, balancing the keyboard project with my school work has proved to be difficult) because I saw and heard people who were truly committed to GNOME.
For more on what we discussed at the Summit, check out http://live.gnome.org/Montreal2011/
I also took some detailed notes on the trip itself for those who'd like to know what the expenses are like.
BEFORE THE TRIP-
-$250 for bus round trip (14 hours each way, gross)
-$280 for 3 night hotel stay
DAY ONE-
+$100 CAD withdrawal
-$3 one way ticket
-$16 three day ticket (this was way more economical & practical, since we were taking the metro a lot)
-$10 Mediterranean food
-$17 Pasta dinner
DAY TWO-
+$100 CAD withdrawal (-$1.50 fees apply)
-$22 for gifts (great gift shop a few blocks away from hotel)
-$15 salad lunch
-$0 for dinner and drinks thanks to Collabora!
DAY THREE-
-$22 for goodies for myself :)
-$15 for pierogi lunch
-$0 for flam snack (delicious) thanks to Karen!
-$0 for Iranian dinner thanks to Behdad!
-$20 for bus food
Total spent before trip- $530 and Total spent during trip- $141.50
So, please don't fret if the "before trip" expenses seem like too much. GNOME travel committee is fantastic, and very willing to help those who need it to come to these events. Along with their informational value, events like GNOME Desktop summit and the Montreal/Boston summit are great opportunities to network and build a stronger, tighter community :)