As an NVCC college student, the expectation is that you will use your VCCS email address to communicate with us, and that is what we want you to do. We know that you will often want to use other channels to communicate with each other for pair and group work. That's fine.

But if you want to communicate with us about anything, scheduling an office hour meeting to get help, expressing concerns about your grades or other issues related to our class, email us from your VCSS email address to our VCCS email addresses. We will commit to check VCSS email at the start of each day, and unless unexpected circumstances arise (which we're sure they occassionally will) to respond to you within 24 hours.

Your first homework assignment will require you to send us an email from your VCSS email answering a set of questions about your previous programming background and the goals and expectations you have for taking this course.

This is a college course, so expect it to move fast. To earn an A, you will need to learn Python well enough to pass the PCEP certification, which will be our final exam.

It is assumed that you already have the prerequisit skills which you should have aquired in our previous course, including comfort using a Unix command-line interface (CLI), a console based text editor (Vim in particular), and using git and a git host as both a software development and commuications tool. We will be using these tools during presentations in class. If you do not know how to use them, we can make time to work with you outside of class during my frequent office hours to help you learn them, but we will not have time to learn them in class.

During the second half of class, we will walk you through instructions for creating an account on Codeberg. You will email us a link to your repo for this class as part of your homework assignment.

The large majority of you were in our web development course last year, so these questions are written from that persprective. Chris will run a pull out session for those of you who were not in that class, and will provide a separate list of questions for you.

Using your VCCS email account, send us an email to our VCCS email addresses, jde232@email.vccs.edu and cmj2310@email.vccs.edu, answering the following questions:

1. How well did you do on the HTML and JavaScript certification exams last year (Chris knows this, but Jeff doesn't)?
2. The PCEP certification exam will be our final exam for the Fall semester CSC 221 course, and passing it is a requirement for anyone who wants to earn an A in the course. What do you think about that?
3. What motivated you to sign up for this course, and what are you hoping to get out of it? Please be as specific as you can, and include any long term and career goals related to it.
4. Understanding that this will be a rigerous, challenging course, do you feel you are interested in and dedicated to it enough to put in the time you will need to be successful?
5. What is the url of the git repo you created for this class?
6. Take a look at your name on our Students page. Is that what you want to be called? Please let us know if you want this changed.

Due: Email this assignment to us by 4 pm on Thursday so that we have time over the weekend to reply before our class next Tuesday. It will not be accepted late!

Evaluation: This first assignment will be worth half the normal test grades that will make up most of your grade during first quarter. An A will be earned for specific, detailed, and thoughful answers to my questions. B will be earned if all questions are answered, but specific details are lacking. C will be earned for answering most questions, and D will be earned for sending us an email.