Well, class is only two days in, but there's a lot I can tell about my classmates. It's interesting looking at it from this vantage point, being a little further down the road in life experience than most of my classmates (there's one lady in my class about my age; the rest are under 20).

What strikes me is that each of us brings different strengths and weaknesses to the table. I'm the venerable veteran, who has worked with computers whose function is as foreign to some of these students as the old punchcard computers are to me. But a few of my classmates have tons more practical experience, as they've literally never known life without a PC. They'll likely work circles around me on the tech end of things.

I'm also more of a verbal communicator than most of the class. Let's face it, most people who work on computers would rather hide back in a closet somewhere and do their thing. A lot of this became obvious when we went to get the books. We all went in, but none of the others would say anything. I took a chair, planning on waiting until the others had their books, but had to step forward because most of the others weren't bold enough to say what needed to be said.

But again, we go back to the technical end of things. They already know many of the things that I will be working to learn. While I'm not incompetent around a computer, I don't have the level of hands on experience many of them possess. There are 8 of us in the class, and I'm looking forward to working with the others, hoping that I can convey some of my work experience to them in exchange for the practical experience they can offer me.

It should be a very eventful semester, although I may not get much opportunity to blog about it.