September 2009 Archives

So today was the first day of school... sorta. If anyone has been following the California budget crisis you will know it extends to the public school system. The current problem is that without money, the UC system is being forced to cut programs, staff and teacher hours as well as to increase student rates. The teachers and students are not very happy about this and subsequently organized a strike on the first day of classes. I had heard a few rumblings about a proposed strike, but honestly didn't know that it was actually going to happen until I received a group email from the French department last night informing us that there would be no French class on the first day of school. Um, okay, I get to sleep in an extra hour. However, I still had two other classes that day that were supposedly being held.

My second class was Introduction to Wine Making. This should actually turn out to be a really interesting class. It covers everything from vines to crushing to bottling and even includes a section on tasting, though it all has to be hypothetical testing because of age restrictions. None-the-less, this should turn out to be an interesting class.

After wine class it was off to the "Silo" to grab lunch. While I was eating my sandwich a group of coeds started up a random bikini water balloon fight. I think it was to promote the Outdoor Adventures club, but honestly who was paying attention. Only in college....

My last class of the day was Advanced Writing, Business/Legal. The class started normally, but the professor immediately launched into the strike and who in class was going to go and support the rally on the quad that was just about to start. Turns out he has a no strike clause in his contract and would be docked pay if he participated but he was adamant that we skip class that day and go and join our fell teachers and students on the quad. I assume most people just went home, but I went and listened to what the union leaders had to say.



The turn out was really not all that great considering a school of 30,000 people. The speeches were rather repetitive with most anger being directed at the president and his high salary. I didn't hear much of a solution. But I suppose the point was to rally the people behind a cause, hopefully the solutions will come later. I stuck around for about 45 minutes until the heat (it was close to 100 again) was too much to bear and so I headed home.

All in all an interesting first day. Where else do you find a water balloon fight and a campus strike in one day? Only in university...

The official summer session grades were posted online and I took home A's in both. This leaves me seven more classes to complete for my major and five for my minor in Economics.

That's twelve class plus five for French, plus two electives I'm taking this term. Add that all together and you get 19 classes spread of hopefully six terms equals just 3.2 classes a term. Not too bad (only 3.8 a term if I try to get it done in five terms).

Classes start this Thursday, September 24th!

Last week I attended TechCrunch50 in San Francisco, CA. It was a two day conference that gave the top 50 emerging internet companies a chance to pitch their concepts to a panel of experts in order to get feedback and a chance to win $50,000. Overall, it was interesting, but honestly, I didn't really see anything that really made me say "wow". Now, that doesn't mean those companies won't necessarily be highly successful, I just didn't connect to anything they were pitching. It was an interesting couple days, and considering my $195 student ticket price (versus the $2,995 regular price), it was a good investment.

However, one thing that I wasn't ready for was the similarities of this event and that of all Hollywood events I've been too. I was expecting business leaders and tech geeks who were there (like me) to learn about the up and coming businesses and technologies. Instead it was just a bunch of guys (yes, 99.9% guys) all vying for attention from some celebrity status VCs or tech bloggers. It was difficult to have a conversation with anyone without their eyes quickly darting back and forth to see who else might be within a handshakes shot distance.

It was funny how little respect my badge that instead of saying my company said "UC Davis". The badges were basically great ways to segregate people. Different colors indicated if you were Press, VIP, Exhibitor, Attendee etc. So the first thing people did was to scan your badge and see what organization you were with. I was the lowest of the low with my school name on my badge. So low in fact that on multiple occasions when someone would come up to speak to us they would scan my badge, see UC Davis, and not even bother to address me. It was very funny and became a running joke to see who would acknowledge me and who wouldn't.

The crowning moment of "Hollywoodism" was at the very end of the conference where Michael Arrington (the guy who runs Tech Crunch and is the face of the blog and the event) snubbed the conference winners by walking off stage and  boycotting the award ceremony. Apparently he didn't like the winner selected and went off and had a little cry backstage. I would call that pretty darn Hollywood entitlement.

Anyway, I can't say if I will go back next year. It was an interesting experience but not something I really need to do again.

Next week I am heading over the San Francisco for a couple nights to attend the TechCrunch 50 conference. It should be a good opportunity for me to get a first hand look at what's happening in the Silicon Valley world of tech. I am trying to shift my focus more into the field of entrepreneurial business and figure this is a good way to get some first hand knowledge of who is doing what. I have to admit I don't really know what to expect but you've got to start somewhere.

I have finished my first semester at UC Davis. It was a fast paced breeze through a terms worth of work in only five weeks but it was worth knocking out two required classes. I now have two weeks vacation before I start the fall term.