23rd October: Intel Deep Learning Event
Classes finally started after a long break. Morning temperatures are quite low now (around 17-19degree celsius). Also, since Arizona’s Mountain Time Zone (MST) does not accommodate for daylight savings, it gets dark around 6 PM itself. Even when returning home at around 9 PM, the weather is cold and pleasant, unlike the heat in the afternoon.
In the evening, we somehow came to know about the Intel DeepLearning Event on the ASU campus. Eventbrite tickets were full. Still, we went to the event location, which was very close to the McCord Hall, and got entry to the event via on-spot registration. ASU has many events going on, and it’s tough to track all activities. Most of the events have free food (Pizza or a Subway sandwich). This Intel event was an exciting event, where they taught basics of Deep Learning in just 2 hours with some small demo of their Intel Python library. Also, they had some free goodies to giveaway. A quadrotor drone and a few other kinds of stuff to lucky draw winners.
26th October: WPCarey Alumni Hall of Fame
Every year before the homecoming event, W.P.Carey School of Business arranges an Alumni Hall of Fame event for all alumni and current students to come together for an evening of celebrations, achievements, and dinner. The dress code is always Business Professional, and you get to network with many people there. There weren’t many MSBA alumni present at the event.
This year, four alumni were inducted into the Hall of Fall list, and they gave a speech about their achievements. The food at the event was great. Also, to mention, business events are incomplete without Drinks sections, which are the norm here. Sparky was also present at the event for photos.
I met an MSBA Alumni here who was also part of the previous MSBA Alumni Panel. He enquired about my status of Job applications to which I had no answer. He gave a valuable tip, seek out people in events and on LinkedIn, and see if their companies have any open positions. Later that night, I realized I need to get up to speed with my job hunting. On the one hand, I had to wait for a few months to add a few skill sets to my resume and hence, lose time in the applications. Since the program is only nine months long, it gets difficult to time it. You need to quickly add relevant skills in the resume so the employers can take you seriously.
28th October: Homecoming Parade and Game
ASU homecoming parade is a long-running tradition at ASU where we see various departments, schools, and marching band participating. There are a lot of goodies that are distributed at this parade. The Homecoming football match follows this event. I got myself a pitchfork tattoo based on spray ink on my hand at one of the stalls for free.
New Classes this Quarter:
Data Mining 1 classes got started this week. We use Azure ML free account to implement algorithms in the cloud and solve Kaggle problems. This class seems quite fast-paced in terms of contents and assignments, as well. We have weekly assignments for all weeks, which includes the submission of recorded audio with the presentation of the implemented model. Also, there are weekly quizzes (Sample quiz [0.5% weightage] on Monday and Actual Quiz [5% weightage] on Wednesday). Quite an interesting subject as well. I also opted for the ‘Job Search Strategy’ Course organized by the Career Center. This course is instructed by the W.P.Carey MSBA and MSIM Career Coach. This class is an optional one-credit course to improve your job finding strategies. This class has some simple assignments and a 1 hour 15 minutes session every week.