I’m taking CSC 501, Operating Systems Principles, as the first course in a sequence of many in my graduate career. The course is taught by Dr. Douglas Pase, and his lectures are delivered via a streaming and downloadable presentation system called MediaSite, as opposed to RealPlayer. Ironically, MediaSite only works on Internet Explorer, but I found it to be a decent enough delivery system for lectures, so I can see why it’s used.

Homework assignments are turned in electronically through WolfWare Submit, and message boards are available to students so that some degree of interaction is provided. Unfortunately, I haven’t seen more than a handful of students actually post to the forums at this point, but it is only the first week.

The course offered this summer was recorded during the 15-week semester at NC State University. The summer session, however, is 10 weeks in duration. Therefore, the course material is covered at a considerably faster pace than during the regular semester. I think it’s possible as a full-time employee to do one course at a time in the Summer, and two courses at a time for the Fall and Spring semesters. This way you’ll still be able to graduate in two years, rather than four.

I must complete a total of 10 courses at the graduate level including five courses in a designated concentration field to obtain a degree. The difficult part is that I’m not yet sure which concentration I’d like to pursue, so I’ll start by filtering the list of all available EOL Online Courses with those I’m most interested in and work from there.

Electrical and Computer Engineering

1. ECE515, Digital Communications
2. ECE520, Digital ASIC Design
3. ECE570, Computer Networks
4. ECE573, Internet Protocols
5. ECE716, System Control Engineering
6. ECE718, Computer-Aided Circuit Analysis
7. ECE733, Digital Electronics
8. ECE752, Information Theory
9. ECE517, Object-Oriented Languages and Systems

Computer Science

1. CSC501, Operating System Principles
2. CSC505, Design and Analysis of Algorithms
3. CSC510, Software Engineering
4. CSC520, Artificial Intelligence
5. CSC541, Advanced Data Structures

Update: I’ve partially changed my mind about this and have decided to only pursue courses in the Computer Science and Electrical and Computer Engineering tracks.

North Carolina State University provides all students, including distance students, a UNITY account that allows access to the campus-wide computing resources. Within seven business days of being registered in your first course in through Engineering Online, this UNITY account will be enabled. Documentation on the default user name and password are provided on the web site, though it’s somewhat buried within the EOL site and could be easily missed if not careful.

NC State offers a variety of computer resources for Engineering students within the program. These are not well advertised and often scattered throughout the web sites, so I’ve listed the most relevant ones here:

• Use the UNITY Password Change Tool to change your default password once you verify that your account is active.
• Check your e-mail using NCSU Webmail. Your e-mail address is your [email protected]. Use the instructions for Mozilla Thunderbird to configure an IMAP account for your desktop system.
• Create a homepage by using the WWW Setup Tool. Mine is here.
• If you don’t have anti-virus software for your system, download Symantec AntiVirus from NC State.
• Use the Virtual Computer Labratory to complete course assignments that require specific Engineering software. This system creates live disk images of an entire operating system for your personal use for one session. These sessions are accessed through the Remote Desktop Protocol.
• Peruse the NCSU Libraries. Your UNITY account will unlock a huge library of digital databases, including ACM and IEEE journals. There is a special section on the site for distance learning students.
• Pay your tuition, change your personal information, and most importantly, view your transcripts on PackTracks. This resource is also accessible from the Registration and Records office. In particular, visit the calendars page, as it can be difficult to keep track of events when you aren’t actually an on-campus student.
• Your UNITY account will let you access the course that you are registered for through the Course Homepages section of Engineering Online. The page is not always up-to-date, so check the WolfWare Course Webpages as well for your actual course content.

This post should server as landing page to quickly access course resources. I will add more resources to this post as necessary.

I was recently accepted to the distance learning Engineering Online Program at NC State University, designed for working professionals like myself. This opportunity affords me the ability to work on my Master’s degree part-time while maintaining full-time employment towards my PE license. If all goes well, I begin taking classes on May 21, the beginning of the Summer 2007 semester.

NC State University is an accredited institution and the College of Engineering has a ABET accredited program. For more information on general programs, visit the Distance Education at NC State University homepage.