I have been studying through this holiday season. I have been looking over the past exams and answering questions on them. I found a question that I remember from one of the past exams I took. I never remembered it on the reading list. The problem was that it was all in how the question was asked. The link to a past memory and recall was based on the authors names, year of publication and the content of the paper was on OO metrics. This was not enough to clue me in to the paper in question. I have since looked up the paper and have begun to read it. It is not a terribly seminal paper in my interpretation but that adjective used in the question. I am working through the paper now. This question will not be a stumbling block on the next exam. I have also added 2 new books to my reading list even though they are not on the official list. The "UML reference manual" as opposed to the UML reference guide and "The Object Constraint Language, Second Edition". I expect that these books will help with my study. I contacted the author of "UML for dummies" via email. He responded and gave me some good information. Thanks to "Michael Jesse Chonoles" for his incite.

It has been a bad couple of weeks. I have been to 2 funerals. My other relatives had a couple of more. It has been a rough Thanksgiving. Things are better now. I have a short week this week also. I will take a couple of days off and try to get a class to teach this winter to fund holiday expenses. I am learning in my studies of UML that it may have been difficult for the graders to understand my UML diagrams. From an inheritance and interface point of view I did not label some of my classes with stereotypes. This may have lead to some confusion on the part of the grader and it may have made my class diagrams look un-intelligible. At any rate the language for implementation may take a toll on UML. I may have to make adjustments to my design on the test because one or more of the graders may think in an implementation language that taints the interpretation of the diagram. If one thinks in C++ and the other thinks in Java a view of "realization" may be different. I have to be careful.

Not much has happend in recent weeks. I continue to study as much as I can. The possibility of a ZED question is still very real. It is such a large language. I will find it difficult to be successful with ZED. I have to spend more time on it but it will take away from other things I need to study. It may be better if I can just choose that question to skip. ...5 questions choose 4 on the test. I now have the dates. Exam Application Due Date is Friday, March 16, 2007. Examination Date is Friday, April 13, 2007 at 10:00 AM. I plan on taking vacation from work for preparation. The PLuS program director has been notified of the dates. He will be making requests about the exam and how it will be administered in the future closer to the exam dates. I believe he will be asking for a reader, no time limit, and a private exam room. All of which I think will help me succeed. I still believe that the ZED question should be thrown out but am not sure how to get that accomplished. I have requested it from the PLuS program director. ZED has never been taught in any depth at DePaul. I have either audited or taken the formal methods class a couple of times and ZED is only mentioned as a formal method. I think that it is not right that you have to know ZED in depth for a PhD exam at a school that does not think highly enough of ZED to teach it that way. Whether or not it is a specialty of you adviser should be no concern.

In my study I am starting to find more evidence that I did pass that last test reviewed with my adviser. The first question had to do with design patterns and UML. I remember that during the test I thought that I had seen the answer before. Not the exact answer but something very similar. So I used the exact same patterns and diagrams. The answer comes from the book "Applying UML and Patterns by Craig Larman." In that book on page 346 is where I took the data for my answer. It starts out with the Factory pattern and the book goes on and talks about how it may or may not be a concrete factory. It goes on to say that it returns an adapter. The adapter is an interface where you return the real type cast to the type of the adapter so that the object can be handled polymorphicaly. Later it talks about implementing the Factor as a singleton because you only need one of them. ...3 patterns portrayed to fulfill the requirements of the question. I believe that I used the exact same patterns and drew a very similar diagram. The answer is on page 346-348 of the book. I will have it perfect next time. It will not be a soft memory that I try to mimic but a hard one that I study just for this kind of question.

Talked to the PLuS program director today about the next steps. We discussed how it was the right thing to do to not pursue having my adviser go over my first test. I said that I thought that my adviser was somehow wounded from the request to go over the first test again. He concurred that he also thought as I did. He continued to talk about what we could do for the test. He talked about getting the test un-timed and getting a reader for me. We discussed how my action item would be to get him the test registration deadline and test date. He said he would announce his request near to the test time.

Had the flu last week and spent most of the time sleeping when I wasn't at work. As you remember I went to my adviser to see my past exams. He only had one of them. I contacted the head of graduate advising after the meeting and he said that he had given both exams to my adviser. I sent mail saying that I still wanted to see the other exam. My adviser refused. This is what he wrote after saying that it was to long since my other exam. "First, the other test was a quite long time ago, and second I believe we have reviewed that test before your second try. Furthermore, I have covered all the major deficiencies of you answers while reviewing your second test last Friday. I am afraid I have very little to add. So another review will not be productive. So as far as reviewing you previous tests is concerned, I believe we are done." I know that we have never reviewed any tests. The last time I went to see him he ask "Do you have the test with you." He very well knew he had to get the test from the head of advising. So after the message above I sent a mail saying that I still wanted to see the exam and that my adviser did not have to be the one showing it to me. At some later time I just passed on the review. My adviser seemed wounded in the process. I need not put that much anxiety in his life. That would not be the right thing to do. So I sent a message to the PLuS program directory to have a call today to discuss further directions. That is where we stand at this moment.

Yesterday I visited my adviser to go over my past exams. I wanted to go over both of them. I said that we could meet at a later date in case we did not have time during the current meeting. He said that it had been to long since my first exam and they no longer had it. This would be the only exam we could go over. I ask him how we should start. He said any way I wanted. So we started at number one. The first problem was one where I had to draw a class diagram using patterns to solve a particular problem described. Because I missed the word why in the question to cause me to explain why I chose the patterns I did I lost credit. I believe that the language I used in the description was good enough to explain the why. I talked about how one of the patterns was a creational pattern. I talked about how a creational pattern worked. In a different part of the same question I was ask about how I would analyze my design against a functional requirement to succeed in 3 seconds. I described how I would use some timed analysis to analysis my design and gave a pseudo code to gain information about the run time. He said that I was supposed to describe the different ways of analysis and not a specific one. The question was not specific as I could see in this regard. I saw that this was a subpart of the first problem and that they wanted to know if I could do any kind of formal analysis over my design. In my interpretation of the first question I passed this question. It was poorly written and did not attempt to draw anything out of the student. It relies on the trickery of well placed interrogative adjectives to cause the student to stumble on a timed test with stress. This was a trivial question but made difficult by the manner in which the question was asked. This is s central theme of the exam. The next question was on different types of testing. I am personally confused by the wording of the names of types of testing so this kind of recall I get wrong some times. There were three of them. I thought for sure that I had at least two of them. I am pretty sure that I did but because I described how a test would be carried out rather than the selection of testing questions in that technique I did not get the question correct. Again, this sound like a poorly stated question. I think I had at list 2 kinds of the testing correct. I just talked about them in the wrong way per what the test writers wanted....subjectivity. The third question that I selected to do was on formal methods. I don't remember why I chose this question. The question was on the language OCL. OCL is used in UML diagram notes boxed to describe pre and post conditions as well as parameters. OCL is actually a language though in real life it is never used that way. I new that there was more to it but had decided that this has a small chance of a significant part of the test and didn't go deep enough in my study. I had a handle on the syntax but was unable to put it together on the test. My answers ended up making no sense. I wouldn't say that I was completely wrong but certainly you could ague it that way. The last questions were questions like "What is Deadlock?" I had this very same question on the Operating Systems exam of which I passed. I wrote the definition directly from the book. In fact for every question in this section I wrote the definition directly from the book. I was not given full credit because they said I had not demonstrated that I fully understood what each question was about. My adviser and I argued about these questions for some time. I argued that a definition should be sufficient. He argued that a PhD is not about amassing knowledge....his words not mine. He wanted pseudo code to explain my answers further. I said that that does not demonstrate anything. If a person memorized the definition he or she could memorize pseudo code also. This is a slippery slop to define the correct answer by something that you could not memorize. He said that the large body of knowledge needed for the test would prohibit that. I don't think that a large body of knowledge prohibits anything. Sounds like the Turing test to me. I think that I should be allowed to continue on the basis of the last test, in my mind I passed. I know that when I am in a stressful situation like a timed test there are certain things like definitions that get me through. If they want me to elaborate on every question a timed test is not the way to test me. I also find a definition somehow definitive. To explain more puts me into a thrash that is hard to dig myself out. I continue to want to go back to a question and never finish. I find myself being repetitive and making the answer hard to read. On a test where there is one place to put your thoughts down on paper a thrashing situation means that organization is out the window because my organization in my head is nonlinear. My organization is more like a 3d web. To draw knowledge and link to the place where the true answer is means a depth or breadth search of disjointed data translated into linear answers which often times don't make sense because of the peppering of irrelevant digressions. I am really tired of tring to explain. Having an untimed test may help but if the test is completely subjective how can I ever get a fair outcome. It seems that the subjectivity has to be removed. Answers need to be concrete and above reproach. This technique didn't seem to work in my last test. I thought that a definition would be sufficient. I see now that if the test is subjective even a definition can be said to be wrong on grounds that memorization of a definition does not demonstrate understanding. I remember reading about Gauss and how he often had short terse answers. His notebook, published after his death, was only 19 pages long. Would he have passed one of these tests? Does short terse answers not constitute understanding? Why does an answer of a definition, yes obtained from a book, not be the answer? It seems that the technique of denying a student the attribute of understanding, the burden of proof should lie in the test and not on the student. Should a student make the assumption that every grader has no prior knowledge and teach them about their answer. It seems that the audience for any test is the tester. If the tester is inadequate in their understanding of the answer and the answer is correct they are then a researcher learning themselves. So, the student does become the master. If the tester with their limited understanding, but in the position of authority, cannot adequately grade the test then they should be removed or the test be made so that anyone could grade the test with the correct key. Thus, subjectivity should be the last tool lest they believe that they are smarter than all who may take the test. Objectivity is the only true test, not just because of the lack of influence of personal feelings or opinions but because of the possible lack of understanding on the part of the tester. This lack of understanding could be either in the answer or in the test and what the test is supposed to show. I believe that the test is flawed. I don't believe that the professors (tester) are so arrogant that they believe that they are smarter than all who take their tests. My last point that I will make is that I have taken 3 candidacy exams. Each given on a different subject: Operating Systems, Database, and now Software Engineering. There is not any consistency among how the tests are written and how they are graded. Some have concrete questions some questions some don't. Some have essay some don't. I have gone to see the exams in the past for other tests and they way they are handled is differently. Some have the test marked up and some don't. The software engineering test had no marks on it. My adviser had to interpret what was wrong with the test. I understand that it is graded by multiple people. If this is the case, lets see what they all have to say. Lets not rely on what my adviser has to say about each answer. This process of reviewing the software engineering exam could have been done better. The student goes to get understanding. I think that I could have gotten more out of it if I had seen all of the other graders remarks. After all, I am trying to please each and every one of them.

I sent a reminder to my adviser today reminding him that we have plans to meet tomorrow the 20th to review my exams. He has as of today has been very successful at foiling plans for me to see the exams. The PLuS program director has sent email and tried to contact him by phone. My adviser has not made any reply yet. We have no acknowledgment yet that he will even be there tomorrow. He presented the time and date and it is during his office hours. I said that I would attend as soon as he offered the time and date. He has yet to acknowledge the appointment. I have taken the day off. I am supposed to be in the Lucent Lab from midnight on Thursday to noon on Friday. I have ask to cut that short and go down to school. I will also attend a meeting to try and get a class to teach during the winter quarter at 10am..need the money and a way to finance any more classes I may have to take in my program of study.

I am preparing to visit my adviser this Friday to review my past exams. He doesn't seem like he wants this to happen. The PLuS program director tried to contact my adviser to see if he had any questions or wanted someone from PLuS to sit in on the meeting. My adviser did not reply. Also in looking back over my emails again to make sure I had not missed any action items for this Friday's meeting I noticed that the PLuS program director had said at one point whom had said that the usual route for reviewing the tests would be used and I had no other alternative. Today I ask him for that persons name. In parallel I continue the monumental task of learning things for the test that were never taught in the classroom. Because of the variability of this endeavor it seems impossible to cover all that could be ask. I do have some clues in the study guide but for the Software engineering test it is nothing but a long reading list of books. It has not been effective to just read every book. I have done that for the last couple of tests. I have other clues like some of the past tests but I feel that the granularity of the large data points makes knowing everything impossible. So I do my best to be well rounded at as deep a level as I can. Since it has not been effective in the past unless the test changes I have low hopes. But I wont' quit. They will have to make me quit.

On the 10th of October the DePaul PLuS program director sent an email to my adviser telling of my visit on September 12th and how we discussed getting access and review of my test. He mentioned to him that it was his idea for review and that he would expect that my adviser should follow through on October 20th during our meeting that day with the review. It looks like it will take more than a month to get the ball rolling. Considering how long it has taken since my test I believe that the time frame required for the PhD program must be irrelevant in my case. I am not really worried about the length of time as long as I will not be disqualified and ask to leave because of and extended time frame. From past experience I would expect that reviewing my test will be just another set of roadblocks. It remains to be seen. I continue to review. Yesterday I made some break through in the Lucent lab with my work. It seems to have put pressure on our competitors. We have some ideas that this happening from some negative emails we received on the same day. My work takes me into areas where there are only a few other companies in the world that have access or even have early intentions. We get to work with the bleeding edge wireless gear and handsets. Our research and development is exactly what I would have wanted to do with a PhD. I am already there. I really want to finish my PhD but if I don't I have already achieved even more than some of my professors. I just wish I could be treated better by them. I wish I didn't have to resort to working through the PLuS program and twisting arms to get better tests. It should be built into the test to not discriminate. Essays can be so subjective. Just a quick note. I was so excited to see that GOOGLE picked up my blog on Tuesday, October 10th. It is now searchable.

The PLuS program director must have been unsuccessful in getting a different method for me to review my past exams. I contacted him on Friday about progress. He responded yesterday that I should confirm that I have made an appointment with my adviser to see the exams. We must have had a miscommunication. I made the request to my adviser yesterday. After 4 emails my adviser agreed to see me on the 20th. He also left open the 29th. He said I would have to request the time ahead of time so I responded yesterday with an affirmative. I copied the PLuS program director on every message. My adviser responded each time without the copy list. It really should not be this difficult. The coordination between departments is bad. I am sure that the PLuS program director has long since notified the Advising director but somehow the advising director never notified my adviser. It was evident in my advisers email that nobody knows who is in charge. He is so difficult to work with. This will be an uphill battle, but I knew that. I am still reviewing Zed. I reviewed the chapters at the beginning of the book on set theory. It always helps me to review that stuff. You know classical logic vs. formal logic stuff. I have also started reviewing UML. I did a brief overview of class diagrams and looked again at OCL. UML books all suck. This kind of stuff is always done with a tool. Syntax is so difficult to be precise. Think about it. If complexity in software engineering is a driver in just about everything we do why aren't tools pervasive. Diagrams are for communication and internal understanding. Building architects use CAD tools they don't use pencil and paper any more. Storage and retrieval are important to being able to organize the complexity. To skip over to math...It was said that if Archimedes had had Gausses notation he would have achieved better mathematics. At the same time it was said that Einstein developed his own mathematical notation for the Theory of Relativity. The best measure of the usefulness of a notation is its use. I have worked on large systems and small intricate ones. UML has never been the language of choice to meet the needs of communications or understanding. It doesn't aid in design. Reverse engineering of a system into diagrams does help with understanding systems already built. Software engineers don't use tools for storing designs. I struggle to understand the analogies used for why UML is good in the real world. At any rate I am reviewing it.

I was happy to learn today that the PLuS program director ask on my behalf for an alternative to the usual previous test review process. In the past I have had trouble getting access to reviewing tests I have taken. I have always been steered towards my adviser. For various reasons he has never given me access to the tests. On one occasion I setup an appointment as prescribed for reviewing the test. Upon the visitation he ask me if I had brought the test with me. He knows very well that he is supposed to retrieve the test from the director of advising. It could have been a mistake but I continued to have roadblocks put in my way. Eventually I gave up. Waiting weeks to hear results and then weeks for an appointment to review the test and then being shutdown kind of hurts.

Today after an email and a voice mail to the DePaul PLuS program director I got an email reply that he sent a message to the Director of Advising to announce that I had contacted him. He let me know that he had sent the message today. This is one week since he responded to my email containing passed exams and the syllabus to the class that was supposed to teach Zed but didn't. The director of the PLuS program said he had not had time to review the information I sent him but would soon. His excuse was that it is midterm week and he had to work with several others in the program. It sounded like a plausable excuse. I continue to work through the zed examples from a book that was not on the Software Engineering reading list. It has some answers and it is the best way I have found to get some validation. Even though this is probably the 4th time I have done this review I still re-learn things every time. I am reviewing some set theory right now. Sometimes I feel like I am trying to learn things to win a game of trival persuit. Classical logic vs Formal Logic always gets me every time. I tend to hate the difference. You never see what way you should do your analysis you have to know that by context. I have such a hard time with recognizing context. Set theory...a large part of zed. ....chapter 2 of several. I know that it will help me. I just have to do this for the 4th time.

I was expecting to hear back from the DePaul PLuS program director today.  He was to have visited my advisor and talked about how I would be tested, what I wanted and what would be expected in the way of cooperation.  I did not hear from him today.  I wonder about my advisor and how he is cooperating.  It would some times take a week to get an appointment with him.  I have learned that people can use a bureaucracy to their advantage when they need it.  I hope that this is not the case.

Still working the text books on zed and waiting for instructions on how I should proceed. I got an email back from the Director of the PLuS program. He said he had received my last 2 emails but had yet to act on it. He said that I should hear from him by tomorrow.

This morning I mailed the previous tests to the Director of the PLuS program. I sent all of the previous exams that I have. They go back to April of 1997. I also sent him the syllabus of SE431 showing that there were no references to Zed. This is the class that was supposed to teach Zed. I don't think that it is good policy to have an exam question on the tests that I have taken and not have any way to gain validation. I have a similar problem to a problem that was on the first test I took. The question was on structured vs OO analysis. What I could find on structured analysis was in an out of date book I got off of Amazon used from a guy in Canada.

Haven't heard anything from DePaul as of yet on how this is going to play out. Been working on zed more to get fuzz fully working. Some of the sample tests failed so I tried to investigate. It seems I have more problems than I thought. It isn't really working. I have installed Latex2e and the style is for Latex2.09. Went looking on the web for the correct style. Found something after looking for several hours. I have yet to figure out how to load it. Seems pretty stupid to be working so hard to get something working pre-1998. None of this stuff seems more current than 1998 and most is before 1994. I found a new java editor but haven't found a way to get fuzz to work with it. I really need to be able to validate my specifications otherwise learning will go undone. Very frustrating. This is not the kind of learning that is spelled out. First you think you have something but then you find out that it is wrong or not really working. If someone is not learning your not teaching...said to DePaul University. Where is the path for proficiency? When I went through this the first time I had to go to the used book section on Amazon and get a book from a guy in Canada. He was surprised that I wanted his zed books. It shouldn't be this hard to get proficiency in something your going to be tested on.

Yesterday I got up early to adjust my day so that I could visit with the PLuS program director. The visit was pretty good. He said he would get in touch with the director of graduate studies to let him know that I made contact. We discussed where things are and we will have a followup meeting to discuss what will happen. He said he could get the test done un-timed and also get some of the questions rephrased to make them more conducive to my learning problems. We talked about what it means for a test to be reliable and how alternate forms of a test reinforce a tests reliability. I am optimistic though not necessarily for any good reason.

Today I hadn't heard back from the director of the DePaul PLuS program about our first visit. Since it had been a couple of working days and a weekend since I had responded to his message I called him. He seemed a bit like he had not reviewed the times I selected. We talked a bit about the times and he said that tomorrow or Wednesday would be fine. So we plan to meet tomorrow. I am a bit apprehensive about this arrangement but what choice do I have. I don't feel like I have had good results from working through programs like this. It is because my personal results depend on day to day factors. Working on rigid time frames hasn't been very productive because of the hit or miss nature of getting program help on a fixed time frame. I also seem to always have better techniques of learning. It is a white box advantage over a black box thing. Today I spent some time looking at more zed. I am re-reading a number of chapters to prepare for the test. I wanted to be prepared with my objections to the testing situation but decided to wait and see what the director has to say.

I have begun to go through the process of getting back to work after some time off. I have passed all but the last of the qualifying exams in my program. The last test has given me some trouble. I have taken it twice and failed it both times. I have petitioned for the right to take the test again and have been granted that chance. Based on my medical tests and other factors at the time of the test I qualify for such a chance. That chance comes at the price of going through the DePaul PLuS program. I was active in the program a number of years ago. In my opinion I know more about my condition than they do. Even in that light I have agreed to work through the PLuS to get another chance at the test. More on my thoughts about the test later. On Thursday of last week I responded to the PLuS program director about possible times for us to meet. I told him this Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday. I have been trying to contact both my adviser and this director for the entire summer and were not successful. Not until last Thursday had I finally heard from both of them. Now I wait to get word on what day I will meet with the director. I have begun to get ready for the test ahead of anything that the PLuS director or my adviser would have me do. One of the questions on the test will most assuredly be on Zed, often called the Z notation. This language is for formally specifying software. It has been on every software engineering qualifying exam. This is a frustration for me since I have had a great deal of classes and every class that is supposed to teach Zed has one assignment or less and less than one full lecture on the subject. One more tidbit is adviser's dissertation involved Zed. Last night I loaded tetex and latex. I am an emacs user so my editor works well with these type setting technologies. On top of latex you put Zed. The major accomplishment last night was getting fuzz to work on my PowerBook. Fuzz is a collection of tools that help with formating and printing of Zed specifications. It can check them for compliance with the Zed scope and type rules. I got fuzz to work last night. This will make it possible for me to use the fuzz tools to gain proficiency in Zed. It seems that this requirement is not one possible to waver on and pass the exam. I must be cable to get expert proficiency from a text book. Zed is not taught to the level needed to answer the questions on the exam. So I must use the technology at hand to validate my learning. It is interesting to me that every time I have gone to review any of my candidacy exams the professor doing the review with me prefaces the experience with the statement "Some of these questions are not in my area of expertise." This is baffling to me. Other professors have said "These test are designed to show other universities that you have a level of knowledge worthy of a PhD. A PhD is a credential that is accepted all over the world. We want you to measure up to that standard." I perfectly understand academic testing terminology such as "Establishing Test Reliability" and "Establishing Test Validity" These actions don't seem to fit the experience. Four types of reliability are used to establish whether a test produces scores that do not include much random variance. 1) Internal reliability - Is each test taker consistent across different items within a single test? 2) Test-retest reliability - Is the performance for each test consistent across two administrations of the same test? 3) Inter-rater reliability - Is performance for each test taker consistent if two different people score the test? 4) Parallel forms reliability - Is performance for each test taker consistent across different forms of the same test? I can see at least a few things wrong with the university strategy for these exams. I would say that the test is not designed to show proficiency in multiple ways. Five entirely different questions on different areas and choosing four does not give the opportunity to demonstrate knowledge in different ways. Test-retest reliability is in jeopardy because there is much subjective analysis needed to score the test. If no two professors can cover all the test because "Some of these questions are not in my area of expertise" how can we say that this is a general test? They will all grade it differently. I don't believe that there are multiple forms of this test. If for some reason you cannot do this kind of test but know the material you fail. All test I have taken for software engineering have been nearly identical. Test anxiety, reading skills, flat organization of three dimensional facts without a skill for organization in a flat space, historical clues to answers with no historical significance, all these and more play a part in making a test that is not about the technology and all about passing a test. At the current time I would judge this test unreliable. I plan to work hard and pass any kind of test regardless of whether I think it is fair or not.

I have chosen to begin a log of my current experience at DePaul University Chicago. I have been a student at the university since 1993. First for a masters degree in computer science and now a PhD in software engineering. I have had a rough time of it. I have gone from having no money to having lots to having little. I have gotten married, had a child who nearly died at birth, and have had two people in my extended family die during that time. I am writing this because I hope that by putting it down I will encourage others. I struggle with a learning disability and have for the largest part of my academic career been able to hide the problems excelling to heights other said I could not. I have also been accused of not having such a condition by others and been discriminated against because of an inability to demonstrate knowledge in certain ways. I believe I can do it in others. I have now come to the last qualifying exam in the PhD program. I am asking myself what is it that makes a PhD. I find it difficult to define. I have come to feel that it has nothing to do with complexity or difficulty. I have had many people tell me what it is and what it isn't. I am not satisfied with any of them. I currently develop embedded device software. I spend time in the labs at Lucent and work with some of the finest people. Even though we do product development I am developing new protocols and working in the very same manner as researchers. I use the scientific method every day. It would seem that the application of formal methods and other systematic techniques would constitute research but it doesn't seem to get that respect from the academics I come in contact with at school. I have had professors say "The PhD will be the hardest thing you have ever done in you life." I think that is a pretty bold statement. I am not so upset at the disrespect of my work life but the lack of respect of what it took to develop techniques to get around a learning disability and do these things school, work, or otherwise. I am not saying it won't be hard because I think that it is hard and will be hard. I just think that they have no statistical grounds to judge me against other students or in the same statistical manner. My learning disability has never been diagnosed to my satisfaction. The current medical diagnosis is ADHD. I think that ADHD is wrong and it is probably an autistic spectrum disorder. It doesn't much matter what they are but that I can identify my deficiencies and cognitively get around them. Social aspects coupled with memory anomalies manifested in phobias, reading and aphasia problems are just to name a few. These issues due overlap. I will succeed they just don't know it yet. So I plan to document the journey to its end from this day forward. I plan to write on every significant event here from now on.