Homework, Bloody Homework

Hello, faithful followers, of which I currently have 0. If you're out there, let me know...

I don't mind homework so much. Especially if I'm doing math, or even better, writing code. I do love code. I love music. I love writing, especially if it's not a technical document. I love reading novels (but not textbooks).
The worst part about being a CS/SE is the mind-numbing amount of textbook reading and technical document writing that ensues. Of all textbooks, I really can't imagine anything worse than a book on project management or how to gather requirements and specifications. Then come the technical documents on project requirements, project specifications, project plans...the list goes on forever. I would love a good essay every now and then, especially about a novel.

I would be saving myself considerable amounts of reading, group meetings, and homework by dropping my SE major. This seems like a particularly good option since I don't ever want to manage a software project. That would be total torture. And yet, I persist. I think having knowledge of software engineering will make me much more marketable instead of being simply a CS. I really want to do math-computer science work, possibly research related.


Perhaps you can tell, but I like to write. That's why I'm doing this blog. After an incredible amount of work in high school AP English (thank you, Mrs. Mayer!), I'm not half bad either. But pit me against other college engineering students, and I look like Charles Dickens. So when we have technical documents to turn in, and my team churns out a list of six items for a document that is supposed to have a title page, I'm naturally concerned. As a result, I end up writing about 80% of all "group" papers with my name on them. I have to go through and edit everyone else's work so that it makes a paper that I would turn into my AP English teacher. Because that's the standard I hold myself to now, and probably forever. Why should it be anything less? Most of the professors won't know the difference (a few would), but it just isn't in me to do the minimum necessary.