College of the Desert

My Web Publishing 1 class starts today at COD's "Virtual Valley", aka online courses. Its part of the Computer Information Systems degree curriculum. In the early 90's when I was going to COD, they didn't have $hit "booop" (that's my ASCII sound effect) for computer courses, and they were oblivious to the Internet. Back then, everything was DOS based (dang, that was a long time ago). Now, not only do they have actual programming courses, they have all types of classes online. So after registering for the Web Pub class, I decided to order my transcripts to see what I actually accomplished back in the day. Turns out I only need a couple of classes of general ed left, and if I follow the CIS curriculum I can get an AA degree. Since I can take all these courses online, I've decided to go for it. Why not?

Actually there is one CIS course I can't take online, which is Windows and Internet. I had to get a prerequisite override from the department to take the Web Publishing class. Hopefully I'll be able to get credit by examination for it, if I have to go to COD for 5 months and take that class, I have a feeling I'll pull my hair out.

When I was at the campus taking care of the pre-req override, walking around (lost) was bringing back so many memories of when I first attended at 17. For one thing, I remember my mom had bought a Motorola cell phone, and I used to take it with me on the days I went to COD. It was smaller than the brick style, (it was actually a flip-phone) but it wasn't much lighter! I also remember there were no internet dialup numbers local to the desert yet. I had to call long distance to San Diego to use the internet. One night I was up late screwing around and I fell asleep with it logged on. Not only was there no "unlimited plans" like today, but as I said it was long distance to SD. I didn't do that again.