So what if you get a really low score on that MP, at least you tried.

I just read this article on MB's Technews section, entitled "Student Projects¨ by Albert Tagaban. In the article, he talked about how some students would pay him to do their programming projects for them. He says that when you do this, nobody benefits from it, not him or, obviously, the student. In fact, it is much better that you try to do your own projects. He also said that programming is hard, and teachers or instructors as he calls them, can't teach the student everything that they need to know, but of course, that doesn't give the students any excuse. There was something he said that really got to me, I quote, "Of course, it's tough the first time around but once you get used to it you will proudly say that you can do any project that may come your way. Of course, most projects require extensive research, but what the heck, you¡¦ve gone through it once or twice and I know you can do it for the nth time.¨ (That line really reminds me of the time, Bea, MG and I been to the library to research on our case study in Dasalgo.) The reason why I mentioned this article is that it got to me. I guess I've always known for a fact that a lot of college students pay people to do their projects for them. In fact, one of my friends from high school, Marc, actually offered to pay me for helping him with his case study. But the thing is, hell, you pay tons of money for you to learn this stuff from school, what a waste it would be if you won't even learn anything because you don't even do your own projects on your own. So what if you get a really low score on that MP, at least you tried. My mom, after seeing me cramming for my last MP (MP, by the way stands for Machine Project, you'll be hearing this term a lot) until the death of night, said that it's okay even if I failed the course, I can just retake it, because for her it is enough to see that I already did my best, even though my best is far from being good enough. Other things, the part when he said what instructors teach is not enough, I really think that it is true. I mean, in Objectp, we are expected to have mastered in Compro1 and Compro2. But the thing is, some of us, me actually, barely passed those subjects. So even though I got the gist of those subjects, I can't say I mastered them totally. The segmentation fault is still a problem that I can't get over with. Also the subject being Object Oriented Programming in Java meant that the emphasis is on OOP concepts and not Java, which also meant that other Java concepts are something that you have to read up on your own. Because, programming languages are very broad, they have so many predefined functions and you have to read through them yourself. They are these APIs though that gives you a summary of everything. In Objectp, we don't have a textbook, which is why we really have to a resourceful bunch and download those free e-Books from Sun or ultimately rely on our CCS Frosh CD, which includes loads of cool stuff, ranging from applications to tutorials to sample MPs. Another subject which requires research is Dasalgo, which stands for Data Structures and Algorithm, by the way. We (Bea, MG and I, whoever poor soul we drag with us) spent loads of time in the library researching on those algorithms and pseudo codes, because somewhere along the line we realized that the Internet is not the key to everything. I can't say that I am a programmer yet, because there is still a long road ahead of me. But all I can say for now is, I am aspiring to be one and I am not going to rely on other people to do my projects. If I'm going to write a thesis on the lack of implementation of the copyright law in the Philippines esp. on digital books (of course, also digital contents in general), I might as well do it right and cite my sources, also in case I get charge with plagiarism. Source of the aforementioned article: Tagaban, Albert. (March 6, 2006). Student Project. Manila Bulletin Special Supplement Technews HardCode, v3n49, p. D4.