As the schoolyear wraps up (this is finals week; one more to go on Friday and then I'm done), figured I'd update this.

This summer, I'll be working as an SDE Intern (Software Development Engineer is what the acronym stands for) with Microsoft in Seattle. I'm really looking forward to it - when I went out there to interview back in January I loved the area and loved the company; this should be a great experience both for the resume and for me in general and will hopefully lead to a full-time offer. Which would be nice - to be honest, with all the people I've talked to so far that work there or have worked there, it seems like a place I'd fit in great. I guess I'll find out more about that this summer. While I'm out there, I've already got tons of ideas for great stuff to photograph, so hopefully I find the time to get it all in.

I've passed the toughest of academic times. I really loaded this year up with a lot of my most difficult and/or time-consuming courses to get them over with. It's been tough, and my free time (and postings here) have plummeted, but now I reap the benefits. Next year is essentially general ed requirements plus a couple of Comp. Sci classes to keep my skills from rusting. I'm all set to graduate on time (will have been 8 semesters), presumably with High Honor unless I totally destroy my GPA in the fall (it's at 3.93 right now, and presuming I hold 4.0s in all my classes this semester as expected, will be up to 3.95), which'll be nice. Here's what the schedule for my final year is looking like:

Fall 2008 (13 credits):

CSE 440 (Introduction to Artificial Intelligence) - Always wanted to learn about AI. It won't be an easy class, but I suspect I'll enjoy it.
CSE/CJ 429 (Topics in Cybersecurity) - This class will be a joke. It's for my cognate/minor in Criminal Justice
CJ 365 (Corrections) - This class will suck. I've already had the prof, and she's insane. Only problem - all the other 300/400-level CJ profs are rated even worse. So long as I can pull off a 3.5 and not go insane, I'll take it.
SOC 322 (Sociology of Work) - I'm not sure if this will be any good or not, but I needed one last social studies general ed replacement and this fit my schedule without seeming too hideous
MUS 114 (Marching Band) - My drug addiction. While I like computers and enjoy photography, my true love at the end of the day is music. Marching Band is an insane amount of time, quite difficult, and yet I keep coming back and loving it. I'm masochistic.

Spring 2009 (8 credits):

CSE 498 (Senior Capstone Design) - This class will be a lot of work and a lot of chaos, but since I'm only taking 8 credits I suspect it'll be fine
CSE 480 (Databases) - Because I needed something to fill 3 credits and it looked good.
MUS 116 (Campus Band) - In the springs I play in the lowest concert band on campus. I could certainly get into one of the higher ones easily enough, but Campus Band is low-pressure, only one night a week, I get to sit principle, and the people are more fun.

Also, I gave in and bought a year's subscription to DeviantArt. I figured that I've used them long enough that they deserve my money. Still figuring out all the neat things I can do with it, but the lack of ads is nice. Thanks to all who still read this stuff, and I'll try and make updates more frequent in the near future.

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Brian Beck
Musician/Programmer/Photographer/Insane Guy
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