Networks and Hope College

I believe that this chapter on Networks has been the most practical topic we have covered yet. I know that I, and probably almost everyone else at Hope, uses internet networks multiple times a day. This may or may not have something to do with Hope's network being so slow. Hope's Internet network is called HopWLAN. This is the network that anyone on campus uses to connect to the World Wide Web. While this may seem like quite the complicated and intricate system, it is only part of more bigger networks, that work to create an internet for the entire world.

One of the things that I thought was extremely interesting, about networks, is the fact that the information I send and receive over the Internet does not just take a direct route to my computer. Probably my most frequently visited website is Facebook.com. Facebook's server is located in California. When I visit the site, I must get the information from their server. The information that my computer and the Facebook server sends, jumps around the country before it makes its way to it's destination. There is an average of 10 to 15 "jumps" for every transfer of information. There are even websites to track the places my information is sent. From now on, whenever I'm surfing the Internet, I realize that there is much more behind just going from one webpage to the next.