Sterling Baldwin

I, for one, welcome our new robot overlords

After working at Redwood Hill Farms, I decided it was time for a major change in my life, and I enrolled in classes at the SRJC. At the time I was sure I wanted to get a degree in Mechanical Engineering. Even though I ended up changing my mind after a year of classes, it was still a very good experiance for me to go into something that I thought I was into, only to find that actually I hated it. As one of my professors told me, fail early fail often! Nothing is worse then investing years of your life into something only to find after all that time that you really cant stand it. After that first rocky year, I realized that I had been doing terribly in my material science class because I had spent 100 hours working on the tick-tack-toe game for my MATLAB course. One was a major requirement that I hated, the other an elective I couldnt get enough of. Time to re-evaluate! Next semester I enrolled in all computer science classes and haven't looked back since!

Summer '06
Class Description	Grade	Notes
MATH 155	B	I took this over the summer before my junior year of highschool.

Fall '08
Class Description	Grade	Notes
CIS 115.aA robotic design and programming	B	This class was fantastic. It was an introduction programming course where we were just given a small robotic platform and told, "Go!"

Spring '10
Class Description	Grade	Notes
CHEM 4A General Chem with Quantitative Analysis	C	Although I enjoyed this class and learned a lot, it was fiendishly difficult. In retrospect I should have just taken the regular CHEM 1A, but the teacher for 4A was really good.
HIST 4.4 History of Western Civilization	B	Didnt particularly enjoy this class, the teacher really didnt seam like he wanted to be there.

Fall '10
Class Description	Grade	Notes
ENGR 6 MATLAB for engineers	C	This is the class that convinced me I wanted to go into computer science. MATLAB is an incredably powerful computational tool.
ENGR 45 Properties of Materials	W	This was the other class that convinced me I wasnt going to be a mechanical engineer. Although I loved the material, and I loved the professor, my brain just couldnt wrap itself around a lot of the stuff we talked about. I could understand it conceptually, but actually doing the computations was beyond me.

Spring '11
Class Description	Grade	Notes
CS 10 Introduction to Programming	A	This was my first real programming class, this was also my first real semester taking classes full time and not working in parallel.
ENGR 102 Robotic Design Project	A	This was the MESA robotics challenge, a semi-formal robotics competition. The format was interesting, each team was given the same set of parts, and then over the semester we had several competitions where the robots would be scored on a variety of metrics. The rest of the class did all their programming in the GUI app given to us, I figured out how to write it all in C and kicked all their asses. It was glorious.
ANTRO 1 Physical Anthropology	B	I took this class because a counceller told me I needed it. Turns out I didnt, which is one of the reasons why I now have a deep and abiding distrust of all councellers.
MATH 1A Calculus 1	C	I took this after not having any math classes for about 4 years, and it showed. Although I struggled, I enjoyed the class a great deal, especially since the professor was so amazing.
PHYED 71.1 Beginning Karate	C	A fun morning karate class.

Fall '11
Class Description	Grade	Notes
CS 12 Assembly Programming	A	More of an introduction to boolian algebra then a straight assembly class. Which was great since I didnt know any of that stuff.
MATH 1B Calculus 2	B	I had the same professor again. Loved the class. I would have taken Calc 3 the next semester if she had been teaching it, even though its wasnt a requirement.

Spring '12
Class Description	Grade	Notes
SPCH 1A Intro to public speaking	B	After speach and debate in highschool I could have slept through this class.
CS 11 Data Stuctures and Algorithms	A	I took the online section of this class, and thank god I did because the professor was incredably dull.
PHYS 40	A	Introduction to Newtonian physics. Very easy after AP physics in highschool. I have been blessed with fantastic physics instructors.

Fall '12
Class Description	Grade	Notes
MATH 4 Descrete Mathematics	C	This class was one of the most painful classroom experiances Ive ever had. The professor was terrible in ways I cant even describe. I hated him with a passion. 40 students the first day, 10 took the final.
CS 17.11 Java Programming	C	This was not so much a java class as and Android class, as the professor was a full time Android developer for Western Mutual who taught in the evenings.
PHYS 42 Electicity and Magetism	C	The professor for this class was extremely disorganized and changed the assignment requirements daily. Dispite that I was able to enjoy the course, and built a fun little project for the final assignment. I embeded a LilyPad Arduino in a gardening glove and hooked it up to a linear magetometer and vibration motor. The end result was that you could wear the glove wave your hand through space and feel the strength of magetic fields.

Spring '13
Class Description	Grade	Notes
THAR 2 Intro to Theatre Arts	A	TThis class was taught by one of the main guys behind the Reduced Shakespear Company. He was extremely funny and made the class very enjoyable.
PHIL 3 Critical Thinking	A	A fun class. The professor was a super duper left wing hippie, but she backed all her opinions up with real arguments and not just bullshit talking points.
CS 81.21 Intro to Unix	F	Although I filed the paperwork to drop this class the second week of the semester, it looks like the professor never took me off his grade book.
PSYCH 1a General Psychology	B	I look back on this class fondly. Sitting two rows to my right was this incredably cute girl wearing a Greatful Dead shirt. One day I walked into the campus cafe before class to get a coffee and she was sitting in a booth reading and eating carrots. For the rest of the semester, I would go to the cafe everyday, just in the hopes of running into her. After the second or third time seeing her there I finaly was able to come up with the courage to ask her a question about the homework, pretending that I had forgotten what was due that day (the finished assignment was sitting in my backpack). The rest, as they say, is history.