#computer science engineering program details

[oneoftheextras]

𝐏𝐫𝐨𝐣𝐞𝐜𝐭: 𝐀𝐜𝐫𝐨𝐬𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐋𝐢𝐧𝐞 | 𝐑.𝐆 | 𝐭𝐰𝐨

masterlist | help me fund my top-surgery?

𝒑𝒂𝒊𝒓𝒊𝒏𝒈: ryland grace x reader

𝒔𝒆𝒓𝒊𝒆𝒔 𝒔𝒖𝒎𝒎𝒂𝒓𝒚: being the backup engineer for project hail mary, you didn't think you'd wake up on the ship, or that you'd fall in love with the science officer for a second time

𝒔𝒆𝒓𝒊𝒆𝒔 𝒕𝒂𝒈𝒔: 18+, slow burn, eventual smut, amnesia, colleagues to friends to lovers to colleagues to friends to lovers again, bad science idk i barely passed chemistry and physics

words: 1.6k

𝒑𝒓𝒐𝒐𝒇-𝒓𝒆𝒂𝒅 𝒃𝒚 no one

want a handwritten letter from a character? / join the discord for updates

← part 1

It had been a week since he’d opened his eyes. A week since he’d been woken up from his extended slumber by a voice he didn’t recognise asking him simple math questions.

A week since he’d settled from his almost-spiral into madness, but that’s natural when the only light you can see is the fluorescent bulbs of a ship you didn’t remember boarding, and the multitude of stars out of every window.

Grace had come to terms with the fact that he was 11 light years away from home, and his only company was the three-armed ceiling creature that had tried to forcibly shave him, and the ship that didn’t understand his jokes.

He’d even accepted the reality of the situation when he’d said his goodbyes to Commander Yáo through the airlock, that one took a little longer to process than the others. 

He wasn’t in the habit of moving bodies through a ship, or going through their belongings in an attempt to remember anything worthy of a eulogy- at least, he didn’t think he was.

It was difficult to know what he could and couldn’t do, what he did and didn’t know, who he was and what he wasn’t. 

“Who am I?” He’d asked the manufactured air around him, “Dr. Ryland Grace,” the ship had responded, and that was the only source of confirmation he’d been provided. He had no choice but to trust a disembodied voice, a tag on his suit, and a sticker on a case that claimed to be his belongings.

Grace had reconciled with the fear, anxiety and panic that came with being alone, but he wasn’t truly alone.

The main thing that he couldn’t quite accept was how the name attached to the oval cot above his own made him pause every time he read it. 

Those white digitised letters caught his attention each night before he allowed himself the courtesy of sleep, and every morning he awoke.

The name was familiar, yet distant. He spoke it aloud to himself on multiple occasions in an attempt to jostle the memory loose from the back of his brain and fall onto his tongue with recognition.

It was fruitless. It was the ghost of a memory; like a word you were certain you knew but the letters were translucent the moment you tried to attach them to your recollection.

It had happened to him before but never on this scale. He recognised the feeling from being at the front of his classroom, whiteboard behind him, board marker in hand when the word he was looking for slipped from view.

In those times one of his students would shout the forgotten word back at him and the synapses in his brain would light up and he could continue. 

But here, there was no classroom - no bright eyed and bushy tailed students eager to guide their teacher’s train of thought back onto its rails.

Here, there was only that disembodied voice programmed to answer with the pocket of information it had been fed by its creators.

“Who’s in pod two?” He’d asked, and the voice replied with the same name he’d spoken to himself. 

“Yes-no, I can see that, but who are they?” Grace had tried, only to be met with the same answer. A name delivered with monotone and slightly automated packaging. A name that made his breath quicken and his heart flutter.

To get any detailed answer out of the ship’s computer was a task within itself. It was clear that the intention behind its creation wasn’t for socialising or conversation but for the basic function of keeping its humans-human-humans alive.

In a moment of frustration, Grace had climbed the ladder up to the occupied cot and reached for the zipper, perhaps a face would piece together the puzzle of his confusion but the robot in the sky had startled him with a loud “Unauthorised!” 

He’d recoiled his hand and glared at the singular circular camera attached to the body of his only conscious companion. He wasn’t sure if the voice was attached to it, but he supposed it had to be, it was part of the ship afterall.

“Why not?” Was yelled back, “Unauthorised,” the computer spoke each syllable exactly as it had before.

There was no real emotion, no humanised input, only facts. “I just want to open it and see-”, “Unauthori-”, -”Yes, I know you said!” Grace yelled back with such energy that his body swung backwards and collided with the metal bars of the ladder.

Pausing, he inhaled deeply and closed his eyes, allowing himself a moment of calm, “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have raised my voice,” he lifted the one hand not holding onto the ladder for support in surrender, mediating the one-sided tension.

He was met with silence, clearly the computer wasn’t entirely aware of social conventions to understand that he was upset.

“Why can’t I open the-” he paused, looking at the see-through orange fabric that shielded the body inside just enough to make features indistinguishable, “-Bag?”

He tilted his head to the side and traced the shrouded features with his eyes; over the expanse where a forehead would be, down the slope of the nose that protruded against the fabric and into the flattened surface punctured by a tube that disappeared beyond where he could see.

A mouth, he was sure. Lips parted by a tube that kept this person fed and nourished.

“Unauthorised,” the voice sounded for a fourth time and Grace wondered if he were to hear that word again would it lose its meaning to him.

It took everything in him to not react the same way he had the three previous times. It was a computer after all, he just needed to ask the right question to get the right answers.

“Uh,” he rubbed the heel of his palm against his head, the fibres of his hair audibly scratching against each other as he thought of the correct wording, “What’s your function on this ship?”

The mechanical hands twisted like the attempt of a hand gesture, one after the other then back to their original position, “Medical assistance.”  

“And mine?” A question he somewhat knew the answer to, but asked regardless. “Dr Ryland Grace; Science Officer,” he nodded along with every word. He’d surmised his role was science based, it was the first of his memories to come back to him. Math he knew.

“What about the rest of the crew?”, “Captain Li-Jie Yào, Pilot. Deceased.” Grace tugged his glasses from their perch on his nose and let them dangle under his chin, rubbing his face with his free hand. He didn’t need to be reminded.

Then the third name was stated, the one that made his ears prick to attention and his fingers fix his glasses back onto his face with eagerness, “Engineer: Stable,” was the description that followed.

“Stable,” he repeated to himself in a mutter, glancing back to the screen attached to the cot, “Can we wake them up?” He traced each letter with his eyes, “Unauthorised-”,”-Yeah, yeah, okay unauthorised.”

‘Stable’. He’d make do with ‘Stable’

Every day he would start his morning staring at the underside of the bed above, wondering if today was the day he would meet his crewmate.

Every day he had opened his eyes and waited, holding his breath in case there was a movement he missed, or an inhale not generated by the ship’s life support.

Every day, when no such sound could be heard, he’d ask the voice, “What’s the Engineer’s condition?”, and every day he’d hear, “Stable.”

Grace had heard the word so often it had begun to lose its meaning.

At first it was a reassurance, a reminder that he wasn’t entirely alone, but after two weeks the meaning grew roots into something else.

‘Stable’ was another day of loneliness. Another day of the mountain of hope being chipped away piece by piece.

It had been 28 days of ‘Stable’, if Mary was tracking the average Earth days properly; and Grace was only a few hours into the 35th day since his own awakening.

The numbers stared back at him from the lab whiteboard, scribbled in the same handwriting he dated the top of the one in his classroom.

“Mary, how many days does it take someone to go crazy from being alone?” He’d asked the ship he’d so lovingly nicknamed.

“There is no specified timescale for psychosis to appear from isolation.” Mary explained but the answer didn’t fill him with reassurance.

Grace huffed to himself and tapped the butt end of the marker against his bottom lip with a sigh before pressing the tip back against the board, “Possibly already insane?” He spoke aloud as he put his words into their physical form.

“Would you like a psychological assessment, Dr. Grace?” The ship asked, more with a hint of curiosity than genuine concern, “No-no, it’s fine. It was-it’s a joke,” he waved the notion away and shook his head, clicking the marker back into its holder on the board.

For now, he was okay, all joking aside. He was healthy, sane, and- as much as he hated to say it- stable.

[blondebrainpowered]

Watercolour portrait of Ada King, Countess of Lovelace also known as Ada Lovelace, ca. 1840, possibly by Alfred Edward Chalon.

Ada Lovelace, is celebrated as the first computer programmer. In the early 19th century, she wrote detailed notes on Charles Babbage’s Analytical Engine, a pioneering mechanical computer.

Among these notes was an algorithm designed to compute Bernoulli numbers, which is recognized as the first published computer program. At a time when computing was an uncharted territory, Lovelace envisioned the potential of machines to perform complex tasks beyond basic arithmetic.

Her foresight and contributions laid the groundwork for modern computer science.

She was also the daughter of the poet Lord Byron.

[dandelii-art]

OK GUYS !! i finally wrote some info down about my yumeship + filled out one of these bases!!! (base was modified by me, but orig creator is listed)

more about Jolene under the cut :3

// Jolene

Age — 24 // April 15, 2014

Height — 5’4 // 164cm

Pronouns — She/They/Any

MBTI — INTP

// Degree

MS in Computer Science

Concentration — Machine Learning

Minor — Human-Computer Interaction

University of Michigan

// Professional Skills

Advanced programming (Java, C++, Python, SQL, etc.)

Interpersonal (for working with androids)

Data analysis (statistical modeling, pattern recognition, clustering, etc.)

Basic psychology (surface understanding of complex cognitive science, dealing with human-like AI)

// Job

CyberLife Machine Learning Engineer

- Investigate complex anomalies

- Preform machine maintenance as needed

- Develop machine learning models to predict, diagnose, and test solutions for complex AI errors

- Collaborate with development departments to refine technology behavior

- Conduct detailed research and report findings to CyberLife

- Work closely with androids for diagnostic, testing, and observational purposes

CARD Department (Cognitive Anomaly Research & Diagnostics)

this isn’t a canon department i made ts up

CARD focuses on retroactive AI research within CyberLife. A team of trained professionals is tasked with handling complex cognitive abnormalities that stump the usual maintenance departments. When an unfixable error occurs, the CARD department is deployed to research and fix it. That research is then reported to the development departments to study and use in adapting future technology.

// Personality

Logic-driven — Facts and patterns are what ground Jolene. She finds comfort in the recognizable consistencies, trusting arguments that point to a clear “therefore.”

Aloof — Because she seeks patterns to understand the world around her, Jolene often chases abstractions. Feelings are connections, people are data sets, and the world is her hard-coded oyster. Analysis is like her little social buffer.

Altruistic — She cares deeply for welfare. Jolene researches not just because it’s her job, but because she truly believes in scientific humanism.

Investigative — Jolene thrives in conceptual challenge. She doesn’t take things at face value or stop at the what, she probes and questions why they happen.

Reserved — She likes observing human behavior and interaction. Participating? Not as easy. Conversations are pseudoscience. People aren’t like machines and computers, it’s… impossible to calculate the best responses to every statement.

Independent —Talking with people is hard enough. Depending on them? Forget about it.

[canmom]

i do think like if you're not immersed in graphics and thinking about all the data flowing around between different buffers and shit that's going on inside a frame, when you see a render of a shiny box reflecting on a wall, it's like. ok and? it's a box? but there's so much nuance to the way light floods through an environment. and so much ingenuity in finding out what we can fake and precompute and approximate, to get our imaginary space to have that same gorgeous feeling of 'everything reflects off everything else'.

light is just one example, but I think all the different systems of feedback interactions in the world are just so juicy. geology is full of them. rocks bouncing up isostatically as the glaciers flow off them. spreading ridges and stripes of magnetic polarity revealing themselves. earthquakes ringing across the world. clouds forming around mountain peaks, giving rise to forests and deserts. soil being shaped by erosion, directing future water into channels. biological evolution!! I turned away from earth sciences many years ago, to pursue maths and physics and later art and now computer programming, but all of these things link up and inform the thing I'm doing at the moment.

sometimes you try to directly recreate the underlying physics, sometimes you're just finding mathematical shapes that feel similar: fractal noise that can be evaluated in parallel, pushed through various functions, assigned materials, voxellised and marching cubesed and pushed onto the gpu, shaded and offset by textures, and in the end, it looks sorta like grass. an island that will be shaped further as the players get their hands on it.

it's all just a silly game about hamsters shooting missiles. and yet when you spend this long immersed in a project, so much reveals itself. nobody will probably ever think about these details as much as I have been. and yet I hope something of that comes across.

they say of the Bevy game engine that everyone's trying to make a voxel engine or tech demo instead of an actual game. but in a way, I love that. making your own personal voxel engine is a cool game, for you.

computers are for playing with

[is-the-battlemech-cool-or-not]

nuSLDF Surface-to-Orbit Munitions

By 3154, the newly-reconstituted Star League Defense Force began Project GREEN BREAK, an effort to develop and field a category of weapon system previously confined to defense white papers and science fiction: reliable and portable surface-to-orbit missile weaponry. As of 3158, the first such weapons have entered service.

The first of these weapons, the Starlance, is a heavy low/medium-orbit denial anti-DropShip/WarShip weapon, and is based on Federated Suns Cruise Missile technology.

The second, the Starspear, is a much more portable anti-DropShip weapon, based on the Arrow IV missile system, and comes in air-launched and ground launched variants.

The third and most famous system is the Stardagger. This is the most fantastical of the program's designs, as it was fundamentally a shoulder-launched, man-portable anti-DropShip weapon; it has come to be recognized as the first MANPODS (MAN-Portable Orbit Defense System). A heavier multi-tube system called the Starsword is also produced, and has found eager adopters among the increasingly power-armored Star League infantry divisions.

A detailed technological breakdown follows.

SOM-14 (Stardagger) & SOM-15 (Starsword)

In both the upper and lower stages, fuel is pumped through a set of piston-less positive displacement pumps, allowing extremely lightweight tankage. The heart of the missile’s impactor is the 0.5 kg seeker (utilizing technology derived from iATM missiles), coupled with a 0.5 kg thermal battery, giving power to spare to carry out the engagement. Around the seeker is arranged a set of four engines, each with a wet acceleration of 1.5 g; three used for translation and one used as main engine. The terminal stage is lofted by a booster with a wet acceleration of 3 g and equipped with unfolding aerodynamic surfaces to help stabilize it during ascent. To make ground handling easier, the missile is encased within a lightweight composite canister that is also used as launch tube by the firing infantryman — in the case of the Starsword, four such tubes are mounted together as a unitary box-style launcher, somewhat reminiscent of the ancient M202 FLASH launcher of 20th century Terra.

Weighing 7 kg and 29 kg respectively, the Stardagger and Starsword (internally designated the SOM-14 and SOM-15 by the SLDF) were created to give infantry and light vehicles a distributed deterrent against incoming sorties from orbit and low-orbit targets at an altitude of roughly 100 km, along with harrassment of low-orbit fire support assets (DropShips and potentially WarShips) at an altitude of up to 500 km. The SLDF started from a design for which compactness was the foremost driver — in both designs the rockets employ a two-stage architecture. The lower (booster) stage is based on Kerosene and HTP70. This propellant is storable, of low toxicity and with extremely low launch signature, making the system more stealthy on the battlefield. During launch, the first stage has an average specific impulse of 273 s. The upper stage employs UDMH/IRFNA, a hypergolic propellant mix with very high performance — up to 345 s in vacuum.

To begin the firing sequence, the infantryman uploads to the missile the target’s vector — acquired thanks to an external tracking unit — then shoulders the tube, points it towards the rough direction of the incoming, and fires. The missile leaves the launch tube, with the capability of periodically receiving updates concerning the target’s movements, then enters seeking mode when close enough to the target’s computed position.

In addition to the shoulder-launched variants described above, the common missile was also able to be fired from vehicles via the Starballista launcher. Efforts to adapt the missile to 'Mech applications were explored, but ultimately rejected.

SOM-24 (Starlance)

After successfully designing a terminal weapon (those that deny the orbit-atmosphere interface and the very lowest orbits to the enemy), the SLDF sought a way to deny all low orbits to any enemy craft — this meant that this new category of weapon would have to be designed to intercept a target at an altitude of up to 2000 km. To achieve this, higher ∆V than the prior terminal weapons was required. The ultimate design specifications called for a weapon with a maximum vertical altitude of 2000 km. At that altitude, a fast target can be intercepted at roughly 2000 km from the launch point, a slow target at 2200 km and a very slow one at 2600 km. Furthermore, if the weapon is employed to bolster far-off terminal weapons, it is capable of intercepting a target at 100 km altitude at over 1000 km from its launch point if fast, at 1270 km if slow, and 1290 km if very slow. However, unlike the terminal weapons, the increased size of the missile led to higher risk of successful antimissile fire from the target — the longer flight times and environment of the terminal phase of flight mean that an enemy has a fighting chance to shoot down the missile. Thus, in order to ensure a kill, the SLDF determined that enhanced-lethality strategies were to be pursued, be they based on kinetic submunitions or nuclear weapons. Thus, before designing the missiles themselves, the SLDF designed the warheads they were meant to use. Ultimately, two warhead types were created.

The first warhead, the CSM-6, uses submunitions to track down and pursue the threat. Each submunition is equipped with a fully independent tracking set, employing the same compact assembly used by unitary KKV missiles. Each submunition on the CSM-6 utilizes a pressure-fed Methane/Oxygen rocket with a specific impulse of 400 s and a ∆V of 1.5 km/s. Thirty-two submunitions can fit within the warhead payload fairing.

A nuclear-armed version of the warhead, the CNW-1, also known unofficially as the "Melissa", was also developed, with a mass of 30 kg and an energy output equal to 150kT of TNT, thus ensuring a radiation kill at around 35 km of standoff against unhardened targets and at around 11 km against hardened ones. Use of this weapon is technically in contradiction of the New Ares Conventions, and thus has never (officially) been fielded, and to date no confirmed uses of this warhead by the SLDF have been noted.

The Starlance rocket designed to launch these warheads is used by ground batteries to interdict low orbit. The rocket is built around a payload fairing holding either of the warheads introduced earlier, plus a common guidance and seeking assembly. It has three stages using pump-fed liquid rocket engines to loft the payload to a position where its warhead may be well employed. All the onboard engines burn Methane/Oxygen, with the booster having an average specific impulse of 370 s and the two other stages having a specific impulse of 400 s. The missile is packed into a heavily-insulated, temperature-regulated launch canister, capable of being loaded into launchers on specially built TELs (transporter-erector-launchers). These TELs are equipped with a launch system similar in size and weight to the Cruise Missile 50 first created by the Federated Suns.

SOM-25 Starspear

The Starspear is similar in concept to the SOM-24, but lofts only a single submunition, making the missile significantly smaller and lighter. The heavily insulated, temperature-regulated launch canister for the Starspear was designed with the same general external dimensions as the Arrow IV missile, allowing it to be fired from vehicle-based launchers. Most dramatically, the Starspear can be ripple-fired simultaneously from the wings of an entire squadron of SLDF aerospace fighters, in a defensive maneuver known to SLDF fighter pilots as an "Eagle climb" — a reference to the first ever orbital kill achieved by a fighter craft on 20th century Terra.

[lonestarflight]

Cancelled Equipment: Lunar Application of a Spent S-IVB Stage (LASS)

"LASS vehicle landing legs and footpads."

In August 1965, NASA began the Apollo Applications Program (AAP) to develop science-based human spaceflight missions using hardware developed for the Apollo program following the first moon landing. They encouraged and invited proposals for new uses of Apollo hardware then under development. One such proposal came from the Douglas Company (DAC) and International Business Machines (IBM) for a modifying the Saturn S-IVB stage for use as an unmanned lunar logistics vehicle to carrier equipment to the moon to support extended human stays and/or a lunar base.

LASS vehicle launch configuration.

In their proposal, the Saturn IB/V S-IVB Stage would be modified with landing gear and other equipment. The Saturn Instrument Unit (IU), which sat on top of the S-IVB and was the computer system that controlled the entire rocket.

Procedure for LASS vehicle landing leg deployment and separation from the Saturn V S-II stage.

The mission was an unmanned, direct-flight, using an existing lunar beacon to obtain a precise landing location.

"The LASS required either a highly throttleable J-2 type engine (J-2X) or a moderately throttleable J-2S with RL-10 engines added to provide proper landing control.

LASS vehicle engine and plumbing arrangement.

"DAC studied several configurations and recommended a vertical lander with a payload package on top. Landed payloads in the order of 27,300 pounds (12,380 kilograms) were claimed by DAC with the 1965 Saturn V capability. This payload was based on a more optimistic delta-V budget than used in other studies. However, the landed payload would still be substantial (7200 - 8600 kg) using the more conservative values."

"The LASS vehicle just before touchdown on the lunar surface. The illustration displays the position of the IU and, above it, the tapered LASS vehicle payload volume."

"After an unspecified period of time, astronauts would land near the LASS vehicle in an Apollo LM. The Douglas/IBM team provided few details about how the crew would interact with the LASS vehicle. They offered only a few vague suggestions concerning, for example, how astronauts in bulky space suits might ascend the approximately 60 feet (18.3 meters) to the top of the LASS vehicle to reach the payload. Neither did they describe how payload items would be moved from the top of the LASS vehicle to the surface, though they suggested that unspecified 'cargo & handling equipment' with a mass of 3100 pounds (1400 kilograms) would be available. These and other mysteries would no doubt have been addressed if NASA had opted to fund additional LASS studies.

The Douglas/IBM engineers did, however, define five typical LASS payload configurations and mission durations. All would feature lunar exploration hardware under consideration in 1966 for AAP lunar missions and would see IU navigational and communications electronics serve double-duty as experiment data support equipment.

Configuration 1 was most in keeping with the role of the LASS vehicle as a sequel to an S-IVB-derived laboratory in low-Earth orbit. The LASS vehicle's LH2 tank would be lined with 3940 pounds (1785 kilograms) of micrometeoroid shielding and thermal insulation before launch from Earth; this weight would be subtracted from the weight available for payload above the IU.

About 7700 pounds (3490 kilograms) of the payload above the IU would take the form of a two-man shelter similar to the SSESM proposed for the Earth-orbiting S-IVB laboratory. Life support gases and liquids and other expendables would account for 4500 pounds (2040 kilograms) of the payload. Experiment apparatus with a total weight of 500 pounds (227 kilograms), a 1000-pound (454-kilogram) unpressurized Lunar Scientific Survey Module (LSSM) rover, and a one-or-two-person Lunar Flying Unit (LFU) of unspecified weight would make up the balance of the payload.

Configuration 1 would see the two astronauts lower themselves into the LASS vehicle LH2 tank by unspecified means through an airlock in the shelter. The LH2 tank would then serve as either a laboratory or an emergency shelter. The crew would live in the LASS vehicle for up to 14 days before they reactivated their LM and returned to the Apollo CSM waiting in lunar orbit.

The other four LASS payload configurations would not make use of the LH2 tank, so the weight of the shielding and insulation surrounding it in Configuration 1 could be applied to payload above the IU. Configuration 2, with a 30-day lunar surface stay time, would include a 13,000-pound (5900-kilogram) four-man shelter, a 3800-pound (1725-kilogram) small (though possibly pressurized) rover, 4500 pounds (2040 kilograms) of science equipment, and 5700 pounds (2585 kilograms) of expendables. The Douglas/IBM team did not explain how four astronauts could reach the LASS vehicle on the Moon using the three-man CSM and two-man LM.

Configuration 3 would include a four-man shelter, an LSSM, science equipment, and 8500 pounds (3855 kilograms) of expendables. The four-person crew would remain on the Moon for 59 days. Configuration 4 would include a two-person shelter, a small rover, scientific equipment, and 11,000 pounds (4990 kilograms) of expendables. The crew would evenly divide their time during their 120-day lunar surface stay between the shelter and the small rover. Configuration 5 would include a two-person shelter, an LSSM, scientific equipment, and 13,800 pounds (6260 kilograms) of expendables. The crew would evenly divide their time during their 195-day stay between the shelter and the LSSM.

The Douglas/IBM team suggested that the astronauts might tip the roughly 60,000-pound (27,215-kilogram) LASS vehicle on its side to place its payload above the IU — which in this case would not include a shelter — close to the lunar surface. They did not, however, explain how the astronauts might accomplish this feat. They suggested that the crew could live inside their LM while they unloaded equipment from the tipped LASS vehicle and converted its LH2 tank into a shelter.

A LASS vehicle with more extensive modifications — for example, a large rectangular hole cut into its LH2 tank for mounting a telescope — might be tipped on its side and converted into a lunar surface astronomical observatory. Ultimately, multiple upright and tipped LASS vehicles might be dragged together to form a 'LASS Modular Lunar Base.' The Douglas/IBM engineers ended their report by declaring that 'LASS is envisioned to be the vehicle to support all lunar surface programs.'"

Information from Astronautix.com: link

Information from the "No Shortage of Dreams" blog: link

[chinaeducare]

The Ultimate Adventure: Coding and Culture – Studying Software Engineering in China

Forget everything you think you know about computer science programs. Studying Software Engineering in China isn’t just about hitting the books; it’s about hacking the system of your own potential.

Picture this: Your morning is spent in a collaborative lab, working on a project involving AI or fintech with classmates from across the globe. The theories you learn are applied in real-time in one of the world's most dynamic digital landscapes. This is hands-on learning at its absolute finest.

But the education doesn’t stop at the campus gates. Your afternoons could involve exploring ancient temples, navigating bustling night markets, or practicing Mandarin. This cultural immersion builds a level of adaptability, perspective, and resilience that you simply can't get from a textbook. It makes you a better problem-solver, both in code and in life.

The career prospects are staggering. China isn't just a country with a great wall; it's a country with a great web of tech innovation—home to giants like Alibaba, Tencent, and ByteDance. Graduating with a degree from a respected Chinese university gives you a formidable edge in the international job market. You’re not just a graduate; you’re a global graduate with firsthand experience of a tech superpower.

It’s a challenging, exhilarating, and life-defining journey. You’ll return home not only with a prestigious degree but with a new worldview and a network that spans the globe.

Intrigued?

Let’s talk logistics.

Please inbox us or contact via email and Telegram for details.

Website: www.chinaeducare.com Email: [email protected] Telegram: @ ChinaEduCare

[schmoolcool]

so you want to be a physicist

— a love letter to academia, discovering geology, and understanding the universe

you’re good at math growing up

you’re good with computers

you’re a quick learner and you love school

surely this kid will be a doctor or an engineer

so you learn the path to success is math

the world is physics, it’s computers, it’s math

these are the tools to understand the world

you fall in love with astronomy

the perfect level of complexity and exploration of the universe

with unknowns waiting to be discovered

you struggle through calculus and physics classes to ace them

you learn the key to success is dedication and determination

not able to take the astronomy classes you’ve waited for

because you couldn’t pass calc 2

you begin to realize all the ways this dream was not destined for you

you were not born to be an astrophysicist

and it’ll take time to learn that’s okay

you’ve stuffed yourself into this box over years

without even knowing it

a path of stem and rigor you can’t compete in

the key to understanding the world was nowhere to be found in word problems

or solving equations you barely understand

you developed a scope of the world so profound

trying to shoot for the stars looking for clues

thinking the answer was in the formation of the universe

you didn’t realize it was right below your feet all along

you grew up in the ultra processed age

where the world around you and food on your plate

with a digital world at your fingertips

all seemed fake

the sidewalks were fake, the grass was fake

or at least nothing natural for the eye to see

the animals were real, but almost as confused as you

if not more, of the world that’s been built around them

you outgrew your fear of the woods and found peace among the trees

you realize the gift of lived experiences

you grew up with habits frowned upon and preached to break the cycle

you began to see the beauty of familiarity over novelty

a double edged sword in an otherwise blunt circular cycle

you were learning everyone is a product of their habits

how environments shape people, for better or for worse

and the habits of which shape the world into its natural beauty

you realize your gift of pattern recognition

you started looking at the details in life

and grew a knack for finding four leaf clovers

a skill you gained from growing up by the beach

after years of shark teeth hunting you found meditation in

then the clovers kept coming

you start to see luck as its own force of the universe

because 11 clovers doesn’t happen by chance

you realize luck finds you by choice

i’ve dealt with adhd, ptsd, and ocd for going on a decade now

yet didn’t realize the true implications of these illnesses until college

i stayed in treatment programs until i couldn’t afford to anymore

an accounts of time and money

i’ve worked and worked

reaching burnout more times than i can count

but time and money are never enough

no matter how hard i try

and somehow, i make it work

i took a planetary geology class last spring

which would change my trajectory in ways

unbeknownst and unfathomable to me

this fall i took more geology classes

hoping to specialize in planetary science

i was applying what i learned in class to what i knew about other planets

to frame my understanding of the universe

when i fell in love with my earth materials professor

his class, his teaching philosophies, his lived experiences, his profession and expertise

he’s taught me everything i know about geology and petrology

and reignited a curiosity i didn’t know i still had within me

i was applying what i learned in class to the world around me

when i picked up a rock by an uprooted tree in the dead of night

and felt myself come alive again

i wrote, and wrote, and wrote and wrote

bustling with questions, fueled by a roaring hunger of wonder for the natural world

now that i wield the skills to understand

and the inspiration to explore

i found where my strengths meet my interests

spending hours in lab staring down the microscope

zooming in to the minute world around me

pattern recognition had never been so handy

things were coming easy to me, with a fair amount of rigor

i had an outlet to question the world

to ask questions about questions

and keep asking questions

i found myself surrounded by likeminded people

kindred spirits with the same innate curiosity for their surroundings

i realized i was always interested in history

but not the one taught in textbooks about humans

the history of Earth and life as we know it

a lifelong question to know how atoms arrange themselves in space

biology made sense, but bugs creeped me out and i had no interest in medicine

chemistry and basic physics made sense, but something was missing

geology made sense, yet was full of misconceptions i hadn’t realized

my final frontier to making sense of the universe

a fundamental understanding i couldn’t name

until handed the lens to see it for myself

i was taken back to my first rock collection

a mcdonald’s cup stuffed under my bed

from my parents whom frowned upon collecting things as to not encourage hoarding

i was taken back to my early education

where i was taught to question the world around me

provided the tools to explore my curiosities

and the space to wonder

i found my love for learning again

i saw the interdisciplinary importance within academia

of collaboration and asking questions about how the world works

for everyone to understand more

i see the world as a means to discover

to question, to learn from, to appreciate, to explore

this year i found beauty

in taking things slow

in aging and growing old

in becoming your habits

in understanding the universe

in the natural world around us

i was born to question and discover

an inherent nature buried so deep within

it would take a decade to find again

until leading me back to myself

on a sleepless night in november

there’s always more to learn about a rock by asking new questions from different perspectives

this was my first geology lesson

so no, you don’t have to be a physicist

to make sense of the world

my missing link to understanding the universe

was right in front of me this whole time

and dare i say it’s nice recognizing the guy in the mirror again