My current task at work is to learn how to use Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services Report Builder 3.0. It is a tool to create reports from an SQL database. I really need to start work on a project that involves images and features from images in a MySQL database. I have done a very little bit of that already, but I need to get more comfortable with it so I can build a database of images and features for work with the R statistical programming language. It seems like more and more people require that now to facilitate data mining of the images. It is hard work, but very rewarding to learn this kind of stuff. I have an old computer at home I think I will set up to do that.
Day: October 18, 2011
Day 57 of 1000
Lorena goes to Costco about every other Saturday morning. She drops Kelly, Christian, and I off at either at NCSU either at the D.H. Hill Library to study or in one of the Biological and Agricultural Engineering to work on GaugeCam. She stayed with us this past Saturday to attend the prospective student open house. We listened to an inspirational talk on scholarship opportunities at the Stewart Theater in Talley Hall, a gorgeous facility, then made our way over to a building named SAS Hall, another gorgeous facility. SAS Hall is named after the famous statistical software company founded at NCSU to analyze agricultural software. The Mathematics and Statistics department are housed there.
We went to SAS Hall because to talk to the undergraduate advisers. It was all very impressive. We walked up to the math table on the first floor of the building and started talking! The Math professor with whom we spoke was amazingly helpful. The professor could not have been more gracious. He spent ten minutes with us and, because Christian’s situation is so unique, asked that we set up a meeting to speak with him about Christian’s possibilities at a one on one meeting in early November. He then walked us over to talk to the main Statistics adviser. We went through almost the exact same process again. The Statistics adviser spoke with us for about ten minutes, then, because Kelly’s situation is so unique, asked us to set up a one on one meeting in early November. They acted genuinely interested in helping us, something that has not been my experience at some other large state universities.
We were all very inspired by the visit. My impression of the campus is that it is much more compact than the schools I attended (Oregon State University, University of Texas at El Paso, and Texas A&M University), but we were only on one of the two campuses. The reality is that I am still not very clear about what is where. Nevertheless, it is a beautiful campus with amazing facilities and very friendly and helpful people (so far). Kelly and Christian will spend most of their time in the same building even though they will probably only have one or two more classes together after they leave the community college. We have lots more paper to fill out based on what we learned on Saturday and there are several other schools with whom we need to talk, but we certainly liked what we saw at NCSU.