Lots of work

So its been incredibly hectic since my last entry. On October 20th I had a stats midterm, and on the 23rd I had a linear algebra midterm, so the problem set extension was very appreciated. Unfortunately Assignment 2 is due on Monday, along with a small assignment from CSC207 that's going to take me forever since I am sucking at Java. Plus there's a CSC207 midterm on Wednesday...and phase II of our project for Friday. Good times.

Anyways I've looked over A2 somewhat but haven't had much time to really put into it, those 2 midterms were pretty terrible. So far it looks pretty impossible, hopefully my group members will have some idea. Number 4 is the only one I really have any idea how to do so far. As for what we've been doing in lectures, I'm starting to get a bit lost. While I understand during lecture when it comes time to do it I often struggle. Alot of this is probably just because I haven't had much time for 236 lately, so hopefully I'll catch up soon.

More midterm thoughts

It has been a pretty crazy week and the upcoming week promises to be even worse. I'm finding the new material to be pretty confusing and will have to start reviewing the lecture slides more often. Today's lecture wasn't very clear to me, however that is probably due to how tired I was since I could barely keep my eyes open. I'd like to thank my CSC207 assignment for this. Unfortunately my other courses haven't left me with much time to spend on CSC236 and I know this is going to come back and hurt me in the next few weeks. Assignment 2 is worrying me but its going to have to wait as I have my STA247 and MAT223 midterms next week and they are worth 25% and 30% respectively. I really can't wait until November where I will have a bit of downtime and be able to catch up in the courses I'm falling behind in.

On an unrelated note, the exam schedule was released yesterday and I am not looking forward to that week. All my exams are back to back, something that has yet to happen to me in university. I guess I should start studying like a month in advance.

We also got the midterm back and I have to say I am pretty unhappy with how I did. I really wish I hadn't blanked out on the last question. I ended up getting 0/8 on the last question but with a remark I should be fine. I might edit this section in the future but now I've got lab so I'm going to cut this entry a little short.

Midterm Thoughts

I've got some downtime and its Sunday night, seems like a good time to write a blog entry. We had the midterm on Friday and I am very unhappy with how I did. I believe I got the Fibonnaci and variable k questions correct for near perfect however blanked out for the third question which I only had 10 minutes left to do. After trying a few solutions I ran out of time and settled for the old "I don't know how to answer this question.". Really sucks but I'm hoping I can still end up with at least a 65. The upcoming 3 weeks are going to be extremely busy for me with 2 very big midterms as well as a few assignments and smaller midterms. As a result I've been motivated to look at Problem Set #3 early and saw that it deals with unwinding. I mentioned this as a topic that I was having trouble with and am actually glad it is on the problem set so I will be able to become more familiar with it. Hopefully PS#4 will be quick though since I have a midterm on the due date :) In the meantime I might as well get started on #3..

A delayed update

So its been about 2 weeks since my last entry so I'll be making this one longer to cover what I have neglected. I left off after finishing Problem Set #1 and just starting the second one. It was much easier than I anticipated from my initial glance and I finished it without too much difficulty. Definitely gave me a nice confidence boost. Lectures have been going better since I switched over to the morning section and I'm rather happy with my decision. Keeping my sleeping habits more regulated is something I definitely have to work on and this is one way to motivate myself..

Assignment 1 was the next recent development and I found it fairly difficult. The first question was fairly straight forward once you conceptualized what was happening with the triangles and the most difficult part of it was translating your thoughts into a written proof. Number two was very confusing for me and I was happy to have my group members there to help explain it. Number three I also had some trouble with and will be going over both of them for this midterm. Hopefully by Friday I am completely comfortable with them.

Since my last entry we have covered a few new topics and a few haven't been entirely clear to me, something I definitely have to clear up before the upcoming midterm. Unwinding was pretty complicated to me and I'm sure I will be rereading those lecture slides many times before Friday. On a lighter note, I like that we are dealing with the Fibonacci sequence, its cool how we can prove things recursively, albeit somewhat complicated at times.

I remember I was the same in CSC165 around this time of the semester where I really stopped understanding a lot of things. It always takes a little while for my brain to get going and for concepts to really sink in at the beginning of a semester. I'm guessing this is mostly from lack of practice, as in 165 (as well as a few other courses) by mid semester I was fairly comfortable with most material and was learning things much quicker. Hopefully this semester will continue this trend as my classes are really just bombarding me with information right now. Really hope I can kick things in gear for this midterm, which is only my 2nd test this semester (the first being today in Linear Algebra..which I feel went well). Anyways besides that there has been no problem set this week so there isn't too much to talk about, I better get studying :)