I’m taking a Geographic Information Systems (GIS) class online through Penn State. It’s a fun class and might even be practical. As part of their online curriculum they wanted to have a few students blog about their experience. I applied, but didn’t make the cut. I thought it would be interesting to post my proposed introductory post here.
Hi! My name is Patrick, and I’m going to sharing my experience as a Penn State World Campus student here. I have only been out of school for two and a half years, but I love my job and want to keep getting better at it. I work on a global model of energy and land use; I try to understand how people across the world might use energy in the future, and how policies might change or influence that. Lately I have noticed an increasing reliance on spatial data; where power plants are located, or where biomass crops such as switchgrass might be grown. I want to be able to use this kind of information to do my job more effectively, and even present data in these formats. Maps have a way of grabbing people’s attention more than bar charts. After trying my hand at open-source GIS software for a couple weeks, I decided I wanted some more formal instruction, and applied to the online GIS program through Penn State’s World Campus.
The application process was easy and straightforward; I was done before I knew it (literally, I think I hit next on the application and got a “You’re done!” message about 30 minutes before I was actually expecting to be done). It made me think back to the long process of applying to grad schools I went through several years ago. If only it was this simple then…
So now I am in, and registered for my first class, GEOG 482: Nature of Geographic Information. I can’t wait for this class to get rolling! I have never done an online class before but am optimistic about this one. They tell me this program requires Windows, but I’m going to give it a shot on my trusty Macbook for the time being. I think I can work around such pesky requirements with virtualization or Boot Camp, but we will see shortly. I look forward to continuing to blog about my experience with my first online GIS courses at Penn State, and hopefully it can help some people out, or at least provide a little entertainment.
