Friday, October 26, 2012
No Time for Lecture Today
Sitting at home finishing up assignments that need to be done today instead. I was going to read through Wednesday's annotated slides, but it seems there are permissions issues on the pdf and it is forbidden. I guess I'll read through the chapters in the textbook to get back up to speed. One thing I should focus on is unwinding; I understand what unwinding is doing, but not how far we go until it makes something useful for the proof...
Sunday, October 14, 2012
Course material, personal understanding, and mini rant
I'm a bit late in making this SLOG, but at least I've finally gotten around to it. My entire week including the weekend has been taken up by studying, assignments and other work. Aside from this I don't know if I'll have the will power to get ready for the upcoming 236 tutorial this Monday. The material just seemed to get 10 times harder than it was at the start of the course after assignment one, and even half the questions in a1 were too difficult for me to come up with a clear answer to.
It might have something to do with my terrible understanding of the material in 165, but the same thing happened to me then; course material suddenly increased exponentially and when I finally had time away from other courses to try and catch up with 165 it was too late to save my mark. I'm not sure if 236 will be a repeat of those events, but I hope not.
My biggest gripe about these two courses is that they are mandatory for CS majors. I know they teach you to think logically, but it's a different type of logical thinking which isn't necessary for those who only want their bachelors to get a job coding. In the summer I was an intern at a very large tech company, I took every opportunity to network with older colleagues who were full time employees working in industry for many years; since getting a job, none of them had ever touched proofs or Big O notation. I can see how proofs and Big O notation are essential for those doing research and advancing the fronts of computer science, but it is not needed for people who never intend to.
It might have something to do with my terrible understanding of the material in 165, but the same thing happened to me then; course material suddenly increased exponentially and when I finally had time away from other courses to try and catch up with 165 it was too late to save my mark. I'm not sure if 236 will be a repeat of those events, but I hope not.
My biggest gripe about these two courses is that they are mandatory for CS majors. I know they teach you to think logically, but it's a different type of logical thinking which isn't necessary for those who only want their bachelors to get a job coding. In the summer I was an intern at a very large tech company, I took every opportunity to network with older colleagues who were full time employees working in industry for many years; since getting a job, none of them had ever touched proofs or Big O notation. I can see how proofs and Big O notation are essential for those doing research and advancing the fronts of computer science, but it is not needed for people who never intend to.
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