Returning from the Depths

I’m sure you all have noticed the absence of new posts on my blog, but there was a good reason for that: I was slugging through the depths of hell also known as my Remote Sensing Class. When I started out this class I was excited to learn more about the discipline and was eager to get into playing around with the satellite imagery. At first it was great, the professor seemed knowledgeable, and the lab assignments weren’t that hard. *insert belly laugh here*

Yeah, three weeks in and I was screaming Uncle. Up until now I’ve had hard classes, I’ve had classes with idiotic TAs, and I’ve had classes that I couldn’t wait to be over with. This class though was on a whole other level. My brain ached during every online lecture, the TA made me not even want to go to the lab session, and our assignments had nothing to do with that was being taught. Thankfully for me, I have an awesome friend and former classmate who works for the USGS as a Remote Sensing Specialist. He was my saving grace but even with his help, I struggled.

In the end I was still excited about my final project though. I was going to build off of the first project I did for the Spatial Analysis Class: Mount St. Helens Landscape Change Post-Eruption. Pretty cool, huh? Yeah well then the harsh reality hit that this project was going to be close to impossible to do. It was one thing to do all the research and write about the topic, it was a whole other to run the different analysis in the ENVI software. So five days before my project was due I decided to totally change it and focus on the vegetation change around Mount St. Helens after the eruption.

After tons of coffee, a couple unexpected days off work, and some source assistance from my awesome, perpetual student Mother from Another Life (MFAL), my project somehow miraculously got finished. The research turned out to be even better than the first time around and the image results I got were pretty awesome. Even better was that I finished it two days before it was due which still leaves plenty of time for me to triple and quadruple check everything.

An audible sigh of relief left my mouth last night after I finished that monstrosity of a class. Now I know that Remote Sensing just isn’t for me (and I even said that in our last discussion question which was a critique of the class). The satellite images look awesome and as far as reading about it and doing the research, it’s quite fascinating. However, sit me in front of the ENVI software to play around with the images using different algorithms and formulas and I’m out.

Thankfully my next class is Web Programming. I’m actually excited for this class since I have a background in web design and that essentially what this class is. More importantly it will help to have a less challenging class to deal with while the wedding approaches. Let’s hope my stress levels drop considerably.

Image is from Buffy the Vampire Slayer