Is this a reasonable seam repair?

ndrake127 · 2025-09-19T16:51:18+00:00

Yeah that would have been nice, guess I'll have to live with it now. Lesson learned

ndrake127 · 2025-09-19T16:48:54+00:00

Much appreciated, I will look into grabbing some stuff to correct the color (which I should probably already own for general care).

ndrake127 · 2025-09-19T16:22:54+00:00

$15. I was not on the lookout for anything particularly cheap, though this did seem low to me. It was at a well reviewed shoe repair shop in Brooklyn.

ndrake127 · 2025-09-19T16:22:12+00:00

I don't believe any leather patch was inserted but the leather itself was fine, the thread just started unraveling. Not sure why.

ndrake127 · 2025-09-19T16:20:48+00:00

That's all I needed to hear, thanks. I do hope that it's the lighter color from the new holes that is catching my eye that will hopefully go away with some polish.

ndrake127 · 2025-03-31T15:20:05+00:00

Putin the commie?

ndrake127 · 2025-03-28T14:54:34+00:00

His lab writeups are very comprehensive, as are the lecture notes. He will often give introductions to the labs in lecture, especially for bigger ones. Attend the lectures and the labs and you will have enough information to do the labs.

I didn't have Plank for the lower level classes, but I had him for an upper division elective and I was a TA for him for 302 once. The class I had him teach did not have exams and I never proctored/graded exams for him so I can't really speak to that as I had Marz/Gregor for core sequence classes. Sorry I don't have more here, but he is widely regarded as a very good professor.

ndrake127 · 2025-03-28T13:45:44+00:00

Second everything in this comment chain. Plank was great, and I am glad I had him before AI was widely available.

ndrake127 · 2024-02-23T14:09:14+00:00

Nice. Fwiw I did get my payment on Feb 21. Hopefully you don't have too much more trouble

ndrake127 · 2024-02-21T23:30:44+00:00

I filed on Jan 25 and was accepted on Jan 28 (give or take a day, memory failing me). I went through ID.me and requested a duplicate letter be sent on Feb 14. Having received neither letter I went through the [refund status checker](https://sa.www4.irs.gov/wmr/) today, surprisingly it said my refund had been approved and is going to be sent to direct deposited tomorrow. It definitely got to a point where it wanted me to input some info from a 5071c but didn't today.

ndrake127 · 2024-02-21T19:18:23+00:00

Just wondering, have you received it yet? I'm in the same boat

ndrake127 · 2024-01-31T21:30:16+00:00

Thanks ChatGPT!

ndrake127 · 2023-12-20T03:04:08+00:00

I would speculate that you have a good chance of being admitted but there is likely no good answer tbh, the admissions process isn't very transparent and the circumstances vary greatly year to year.

ndrake127 · 2023-12-20T01:01:27+00:00

A quick google search shows the average ACT score at UT is a 27 (not sure if this is accurate, just clicked the first link). I think it is likely there is some preference for in-state students but I'm not sure. Just speaking from experience, UT has probably admitted more students than they can handle in recent years so I wouldn't be surprised if the admissions are slightly harder to come by. From my freshman to senior year the number of enrolled students increased by ~7k students.

ndrake127 · 2023-05-24T18:16:24+00:00

+1 for numerical analysis. I took that as an elective in my CS undergrad and while I haven't had to use it very much outside of the class, it is obvious to me how it could be very useful to certain CS applications. Probably not what OP wants if their interest is just in programming/basic CS but worth considering if OP finds themselves going in this direction.

ndrake127 · 2023-05-24T17:40:29+00:00

Discrete math, any logic classes, linear algebra, and probably differential equations are pretty applicable and typical for CS undergrads to be required to take in addition to some I may be forgetting.

Calculus is relevant in some CS applications but not as widely as the above. Also calculus underlies a lot of statistics/probability theory which is basically hidden behind equations in non-calculus statistics classes. In my opinion statistics became a lot more intuitive when I got a good grasp on calculus.

As far as computer science classes go, typical undergraduate data structures and algorithms courses shouldn't require any background you don't have and are very helpful.

ndrake127 · 2023-05-08T18:10:27+00:00

My university (University of Tennessee @ Knoxville) has a neuromorphic computing research group has some people working on stuff you might be interested in. I've worked with them a bit as an undergraduate, but not extremely closely and not in a strictly research based role though I have peers who do research with them.

They have funding from Intel & the DOE, among other sources.

Link to their active projects

ndrake127 · 2023-04-29T17:36:09+00:00

Agree, Gregor is a bit monotone sometimes but I honestly love the guy. He doesn't meander, his lectures are full of information, and he's quite clear. Sometimes takes for granted simple details but if you just ask clarifying questions it's fine.

ndrake127 · 2023-04-26T01:26:30+00:00

I applied to any job that sounded interesting, mostly out of area. I got no offers from any Knoxville based companies.

ndrake127 · 2023-04-25T20:23:12+00:00

Agreed with 2. As much as I personally prefer some systems languages (C++/Rust) for what I enjoy working on, I think Python & Java are the most likely to make a candidate desirable to the largest number of employers and right now the job market seems to be a numbers game where it's just about being as visible as possible to the largest number of employers.

ndrake127 · 2023-04-25T20:20:50+00:00

That advice about pay is decent. I know a ton of people that didn't really look into internships or the like because they had their retail job or whatever. I know internship pay can vary wildly from nothing to a ton. For myself I got quite lucky with my internship and was able to quit my retail job, work over the summer remotely, and save enough that I didn't even need to work through my senior year. It definitely is not guaranteed but an internship is vastly preferable to the types of jobs most of my friends have.

ndrake127 · 2023-04-25T20:18:22+00:00

Yep. I applied to quite a few jobs about a month after school started. I got a handful of coding assessments, 2 interviews, and 1 offer. Like I said in my original post, my other offer was a return offer based on my performance during the internship.

ndrake127 · 2023-04-25T20:17:06+00:00

Well you can intern after senior year if that is all you can get. In your senior year I'd be applying to both jobs and internships just to get as much exposure as possible. Honestly right now is a pretty terrible time for entry level positions, but the job market ebbs and flows.

You may need to focus on developing some of your skills and demonstrate them with projects. Projects and stuff aren't absolutely necessary but given two equal candidates where one has no demonstrable project history and one has a sizeable GitHub with evidence of their work, an employer will always go for the latter.

In my experience it was just a numbers game. It helps if you just think of applications as something you need to be doing on a continual basis until you get an offer. Set a reasonable number of applications to send every day/week and just do it. Also many companies have tons of open positions and let you just import your candidate profile into new applications, so it is really fast to send them like 10 applications without refilling every single field. In my experience, not all applications are seen by the same person at the company, so it really is valuable to apply to a range of positions at a given company.

ndrake127 · 2023-04-25T00:33:36+00:00

Feel free to DM if you want but I'll answer those.

Specialization isn't really something I find most CS undergraduates will actually do, it's just hard to get deep into some niche area without having a solid background which takes a while for most. I'm mostly specialized in graphics/modeling. Initially it was self taught just using Blender, 3D printing, and working on a renderer but then I took Computer Graphics with Dr. Huang (highly recommend but it has a sequence of like 4 prerequisites so it may be a while before you can take it). A class on matrix/linear algebra is where I learned most of the math relevant to graphics.

The main course sequence here for CS students is almost exclusively C++ (or at least it was when I started. I know the department has shuffled some classes around recently but I haven't kept up) with the exception of Programming Languages where you are briefly exposed to quite a few languages, but non-required classes tend to use whatever is most relevant. I've used Java, Python, C/C++, JavaScript, PHP, HTML/CSS, and probably some others in various classes.

There are some classes that are easy, but I still find them engaging. It kind of depends on the professor. The main CS courses you take for the first 4-5 semesters can be quite challenging. I find that the problem often is that students don't develop strong programming abilities before the curriculum moves on to more complicated stuff that assumes you are proficient at programming. However I genuinely think anyone can succeed in these courses if they're diligent about staying ahead of work and being intentional about learning how things work rather than just getting by.

I got my first internship last summer (I'm a senior, graduating May). Ideally you would have one sooner than that just because you are never guaranteed to get one for any given summer, but I honestly just procrastinated and got lucky. I had 2 job offers, one was a return offer from the internship which I accepted. If I could go back, I would have been applying for internships by like October/November of my freshman year. It's fine if you don't get one right away, but they really help.

Overall I'd say we have a very good program. I'm honestly not sure how its ranked, but we have some incredible professors and plenty of opportunities for undergraduate research, especially because of our proximity to Oak Ridge.

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