Memoir … bits of recovered information from the brain of a former Computer Science student
Posted on January 16, 2008 - Filed Under Personal Encounter |
The year was 1994, I was then a fresh high school graduate and in that particular day, I was enrolling at the Virgen Milagrosa University Foundation as a freshman college student. I was actually undecided that time on what course am I going to take. While roaming around, I saw an advertisement written on a board infront of the BSBA building. It was about a newly offered course Associate in Computer Science, a ladderized course leading to the degree Bachelor of Science in Computer Science. With my fascination to computers eversince my childhood, my interest was easily aroused and I immediately enrolled as one of the pioneer students of the College of Computer Science’ newly offered degree course.
My first year as a Computer Science student was both exciting and challenging. Exciting because at last I am in the real world of computers which of course often viewed as something like a Sci-Fi encounter during those times. Being a computer illiterate, I am easily fascinated by Floppy Diskettes and of course the ever memorable green-colored text of the PC-XT computer monitor. I get very curious and nervous by the blicking cursor and always puzzled by a lot of “Bad Command or Filename” error message in the DOS prompt. And of course, how can I forget the bunch of computer trainors in our laboratory sessions. I can still remember most of their names until now.
My first year was also very challenging as I tried my best to learn our lessons with the pressure of the spirit of competition as most of my classmates came from different high school institutions. Those were only during our first days in college, but of course, in the later part, we turned out to be best of friends like one big family in our new institution. Before we are academically competing against each other for the sake of raising our respective alma mater’s reputation but then later, we found ourselves helping each other with only one goal in mind, and that is to survive, to pass all of subjects and finish our course.
Our second year was marked by the arrival of the 386 PC which then later immediately followed by the 486 mini tower casing computers. Wordstar 4.0 and Lotus 123 were then the most furious computer applications way back then. Fontasy was dominating computer graphics and MS DOS 3.3 then later version 6.2 was the ever essential operating system we always bring along with us in order to survive. GW Basic and Turbo Basic were very popular then, and Pascal was considered something superior among the programming languages we knew during those times. Of course how can we forget our programming instructors like Dean Efren Y. Ignacio and Ms. Norie Siobal.
Finally, we survived our second year and most of us already finished the requirements of the Associate in Computer Science degree. And so, the pioneer graduates were produced. Some of my classmates decided to end up to the associate degree but majority pursued the bachelor level.
We were then third year, C-language, COBOL, and Dbase III programming finally came our way. Our instructors, of course, Dean Efren, Madam Norie, and Mrs. Marlene Mangonon. We were then very much focused to programming. During those times Windows 3.1 and Windows 95 were already popular but unfortunately we have only one multimedia computer in the college stationed inside the Faculty Office. Our laboratory rooms are still occupied by DOS-based computers. How can we forget also the arrival of the state-of-the-art remote-boot computers which were then placed at the third floor of the centrum building. Powered by a Windows NT 4.0 Server we first experienced how to use a local area network but still our workstations are DOS-based.
When we reached our fourth year, significant improvements then took place in our College. The establishement of the Internet Center, the first website of VMUF by Dean Efren and Sir Johnny, our Head Technician, the upgrading of the remote-boot laboratory which later used Windows 95 -based workstations, the arrival of the Pentium I computers, and the dominance of the the Dbase Clipper in the programming realm.
Later we found ourselves renting a house where we developed our thesis which were Dbase Clipper-oriented systems. How can we forget the times when we prepare for our defense and how we really gave our best to defend our systems and finish our course and became the Pioneer graduates of the VMUF College of Computer Science in 1998.
Lastly, let me give special attention on this part, how can we ever forget our all-time favorite College Secretary Mrs. Aurora Magalong, who taught us more than computer technology but “life’s technology” as well, did i get the term right? I was so happy to know she is still there after all these years, continuously giving inspirations to the students. I have a lot more to say actually, but I think some sectors of my data storage probably needs some more Norton Disk Doctor scan to be recovered as of this very moment as I write this memoir. Anyway, I may not have mentioned a lot of specific things or persons in this article but I hope these pieces of information will help my batchmates travel back through those years that gone by. Information is really very valuable, so valuable worth storing in the storage devices of our life.
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nice! a walk down memory lane… hahaha! I remember the first time I even held a keyboard, those flickering green text, or how I would go to the next town just to be able to copy some DOS games into my handy floppy. hahayz! dowz wer d days! ngaun, I carry around a bag full of CDs and DVDs. hahayz!