Date: Tue, 07 May 2002 13:52 *** UPDATED on MAY 2nd, 2003 *** From: Mark Jacobson To: 810-023-01@uni.edu Subject: Take home question letter of application... Hi 023 students, Your take home final exam/project/question can be turned in by the end of final exam week. You can hand-write it, if it is legible and easy to read, or you can email it and/or word process it. You are applying for a job. Write a letter that goes into depth on some of what you have learned in 810:023 class that will be of advantage on the job. What skills and general concepts have been added to your collection of skills and experiences from taking 023 that will help you contribute more than another applicant for the job? What do you have to offer because of 023? The letter should demonstrate some evidence of your technical depth on some issue from the 023 class, whether networks or microcomputers or graphics or whatever. The interviewer and hiring team are looking for technical understanding and appreciation that goes beyond the superficial knowledge that is taught in the typical networking certification class or self-study book. The evidence of your technical appreciation of concepts should be in your own words, like you are talking in a live interview. Your personal understanding and insights are what are being looked for. And you ability to communicate. The letter should demonstrate some appreciation for the Ghostbuster's metaphor that was explored during the 2nd half of the final exam period. There are two links on the web page you can read to get more information, if you want to read about this ahead of time. Your interviewing and hiring team is headed up by several former UNI students who took Mark Jacobson's classes, and they want to assess your understanding and appreciation of the Ghostbusters troubleshooting metaphor. You can relate this to 1. the Troubleshooting lab we looked at during the final class period or 2. you could instead relate it to learning about networks or graphics, and RGB and binary and hexadecimal or Hamming codes or subnet masks, attentuation or whatever, 3. or to consulting and helping others with computer problems (slimers) or computer training 4. or to whatever relates to the class of most interest to you. Obviously, you might be able to connect it up to your major and your own career goals in some way. At the very least,study the VET SAT AUC TVV SO YMDC acronym while you prepare your essay. Finally, since we have studied networks in some depth, and certain aspects of PCs in a fair amount of depth, and are always talking about how amazing the increasing capacity of memory and CPU speed and network capability and speed and the growth of the internet is, you should summarize in one or two paragraphs in a P.S. at the end of your paper/letter how you are different and more capable and better at troubleshooting and problem solving and approaching computer hardware and software than you were before going through 810:023 this spring. I would recommend you write a rough draft and brainstorm a bit and then come back and organize and edit and develop your final version. This "take-home final" is really meant to simulate writing a letter to a hiring team on why they should hire you. It hopefully will help you prepare for real world interviews in the future and do some reflection about the set of attitudes, skills and concepts you have acquired in taking 023. Our final exam is at 1 p.m. on Tuesday, May 6th. 1:00 M W F* 1-2:50 p.m. Tuesday, May 6 The first 50 minutes of the exam period will be a double quiz. There will be a study guide posted from our class web page. The 2nd 50 minutes will be the Ghostbusters troubleshooting material explained above. Mark