Geek Lessons

As of September 9, 2008, I will be taking some geek lessons at UBC.

I’m finally putting up a website for my business – so far I have the domain name and lots of enthusiasm – and since I want to use WordPress for the site, I need some idea of how PHP works.

I’ll be taking Introduction to Programming Basics and Introduction to PHP Programming as seen here. If those go well I might take the Advanced Web Programming Using PHP course too.

When I can, I prefer to do things myself. If I can teach myself HTML and CSS, I can learn programming basics and PHP too. Even if I’m a complete dunce at these courses, I hope to at least walk away with some idea of what I’ll be paying other people to do for me.

I’m kind of excited to take some university courses – I’m interested in seeing how the old grey matter stands up against new information and what my classes will be like.

I hope it’s better than the time I was in fourth year university and taking a first year course. I know I was an obnoxious little moron in first year and I didn’t pay nearly as much attention as I should have, but I had no idea how annoying I was until I took that class.

All the new students did was talk – well, they whispered, but it was still distracting.

“Oh my god, I was soooo sick this morning. Monday nights are SO NOT the new Friday.”

“This class is so boring, if goes on any longer I might kill myself.”

Some people simply slept, which was OK by me - drooling on a $150 textbook is stupid, but at least it’s quiet. The professor for that class is legally blind and therefore has exceptionally keen hearing. He used to turn his milky eyes on the worst offenders and stare at them until the whole class was uncomfortably silent and then he would continue the lecture.

I always wanted to applaud when he did that. It was very effective. After a few classes the talkers either shut up, or dropped the course.

So, I’ll be a student again – at least for a month or two – now who wants to pay for my textbooks?