This is what homework at 33 feels like

Do you remember the last time you had homework? For some of you, it was....more than a while ago. For others, it's happening right now. Do me a favor, close your eyes for a second. Think back to an assignment that kept you up all night. That feeling of crashing a deadline, trying to finish a high quality piece of work on time, or just stumbling foreward through some requirement. When I was an undergrad at UMass Amherst, I took a chemistry class for non-sicnece majors that I changed to pass/fail on the last day it was allowed because I was on track to get around 68-70 #memories.

I've been back in grad school for a couple of weeks now, working through my first semester as a student in the Master of Science in Data Science program at the CUNY School of Professional Studies. I'm taking a full time class load while continuing to work full time for Disney:

• DATA 602: Advanced Programming Techniques with Python
• DATA 606: tatistics and Probability for Data Analytics
• DATA 607: Data Acquisition and Management
• DATA 624: Forecasting & Predictive Analytics

All the classes are well organized but just different enough in how they're structured that I always find myself making sure I have the right dates for the right assignments for the right classes. Is that assignment due this Sunday or the following one? When do I need to post discussion board responses? Is it this one that requires Github and Rmd files or the other one? Can I link my GCP instance for this class or is it the other one? Who is John Galt?

I have a two pronged system for keeping myself organized: Todoist for tasks and Notability and Bear Markdown Notes for note keeping. I like Bear's flexibility tagging system but it doesn't support note keeping by hand, which I prefer since it supports information retention.

If you pay for Todoist, which is $4-5 dollars a month, you can sync across devices and set reminders and times for tasks. I recently started using their project-based system that supports nesting, which lets me group my CUNY classes together. I have a separate section for my personal life, Tasks can be set to recur on a custom cadence, which is clutch for those assignments that are a variation of the same thing each week.

I wish Bear would just start supporting writing with an Apple Pencil because Ido love their tagging system. You can put multiple tags on the same note, allowing it to appear in multiple sections where it's relevant. Since it's a markdown system, you can separate code as needed into defined cell blocks.

Between work and school, I work most days from 7:30am to around 11pm. I always try and get the assignments with immediately submission deadlines due first, even if that means skimming over the assigned readings. I can usually find time to read a few chapters at once, allowing me to catch up.

Will I lose my mind along the way? Stay tuned.