Double Take

--> first and second takes on my classes this semester.

Note: This is an exercise in speed blogging, to be performed as practice in writing something of value but without taking forever. We'll see if this works.

Ok so here are my impressions of my classes from the first and second sessions of each (except for the 399, since it's a half credit and only meets Mondays). Btw these are in order of occurrence of the first session of each class.

CIS 460: Computer Graphics
[first class] Well we all gathered in Wu & Chen (aka Levine 101) where I took CIS 110, haha... There were a bunch of grad students, which was minorly intimidating for a sec, but made sense after I remembered it's cross-listed as CIS 560 and probably they're CGGT (Computer Graphics and Game Technology) students. Grace and I instated the "DMD Undergraduate Row" - I can't remember exactly but I know Ted, John, Carlin, Brynn, Nirav, and Ryan (a sophomore who was in 277 with us) are all in the class. The class began with Nirav asking if the slides could be printed in black and white and Dr. Badler explaining how the trio of himself, PowerPoint, and the printer do not get along. Then Dr. Badler introduced the field of computer graphics by describing a number of its applications. The class felt really comfortable and familiar, obviously because it's the class which 277 was specifically designed to precede (and taught by the same professor). As it's my only class on Wednesdays, I had a pretty good first day of class! :P
[second class] This turned out to be hilarious for a good 20 minutes or so when PowerPoint was being strange and YouTube was just not cooperating for Dr. Badler, and then neither was the DVD at first - and all he wanted to do was show a couple of videos! At one point, for the DVD, we had video but no sound, and then we had sound but no video! I was crying laughing...which I felt kinda bad about... The rest of lecture was pretty chill; I followed along in my $25 coursepack of the lecture slide printouts, just purchased from the SEAS copy center. We're definitely gonna be reviewing some material from 277, but for sure that can't hurt! (And it'll probably move fast.) So my outlook is lectures will be cool... Homeworks? Not sure how intense they'll be, yet. Definitely expecting to be coding a lotttt. We don't have lab, which is a little nervewracking, because clearly they won't be going over OpenGL and C++ stuff with us anymore. (We are supposed to remember it all from 277. lol..) We do, however, have Skiz as a TA, so that should be awesome. :D Maybe I will go to some office hours for once...

FNAR 234: Web Design
[first class] First off, the instructor seems good - he's cool but he knows his stuff. He comes from the design side, which I like, because I think that's the side I need more instruction/work on. (Also, he and the TA are friends and make a good pair. Kinda like Jeff and Sunita...hahaha.) From a code standpoint, I'll be relearning some html, and probably some css, though I definitely know there's a LOT I can still learn re: css. More importantly I hope I learn design and usability, which if the book he asked us to get and the first/ongoing project are any indication, it should be a focus. We are doing the html/css in Dreamweaver, so that should be interesting, and I might feel a little cheap not coding it all straight by hand. Also he keeps calling html and css "programming languages", which to me doesn't seem quite right, because I've always thought that programming languages DO something, whereas straight html and css don't perform any kind of actions on their own. Still...a good first impression, and I'm hoping not too stressful. Also Grace is in the class so that's cool.
[second class] We went over web terminology, complete with examples. So, yay I learned what some things mean! I don't care if it's elementary, because that might be where I am with some of this stuff. Then he demoed how to set up a blog and then we basically had an hour to start the blogging assignment. :) If not previously evident, I'll mention now that I like the TA, Erin, as well.

CIS 262: Automata, Computability, and Complexity
Ok this course deserves a precursor. Ever since at least the end of last year, when I really tried reading the course title during registration, I was pretty petrified of this class. The fact that Evan used to say he hated it while he took it (along with a few glances at his notebook) only added to this sentiment...
[first class] On the bright side Dan will be suffering through this class alongside me, as well as Grace, Jay, Carlin, John, and..? Anyway at the beginning of class Dan informed me that "automata" is pronounced with the emphasis on the second syllable; hence I'd been saying it wrong every time I listed my classes for someone and explained that I was scared of this one. Oh well. We are in Berger Auditorium in the Skirkanich basement, which is chilly and Dan and I both have no service. (This bothers Dan more than it does me.) The professor has something of an accent though not too horrible, I just have to listen a little harder. We spent like 10 minutes on syllabus stuff and then launched immediately into notes. Thus far I've followed what's going on, but I don't think I can trust that as an indicator that the rest of the class won't get plenty harder...
[second class] Well actually we have a "recitation" for this class - only one section of it, so basically it's an hour long and taught by the professor rather than a TA. It's my only class in DRL this semester - I was so close to not being there at all! At least A8 is a nicer room, despite its prior association as my Math 114 room haha. Anyway, we started going over proofs by induction, which is not a topic I enjoy but nonetheless familiar from 260.
[third class] This was the second lecture. It was pretty much more of the same, and luckily I am still understanding like 95-100% of the notes. People are already falling asleep in that class though, haha. It's probably gonna be a long semester. I miss Benjamin C. Pierce (260 prof) cuz...he was more engaging and pretty much all-around awesome.

CIS 330: Design Principles of Info Systems
(I basically translate this course title into "Databases".)
[first class] Well Dan and I get to walk from 262 and chill in this class too, so that's cool... Class began with the course webpage mysteriously being inaccessible, and other oddities. But once we got into the lecture, I'm glad it's starting pretty much from the bottom-up level of databases. I'm not exactly sure how the course is going to progress, either content-wise (she kept emphasizing that we're not gonna come out of it as Oracle programmer whizzes) or difficulty-and-effort-wise (we may not have even learned enough to do the first homework yet).
[second class] This time we all introduced ourselves and holy crap, Chin, our 121 TA who managed our final project, is in the class!! Nirav and I were laughing haha... (Am I really up to par enough to be in the same class as Chin??) At least I found that most people had only a bit of database experience so I should be okay. We continued through the lecture and it all seems reasonable so far. I'm really hoping I learn a lot through this class. I'm so eager to collect knowledge and ability in something really different from everything I know so far.

Music 150: Introduction to Global Music
Talk about a change from computer science...
[first class] Well, the class is almost entirely music majors - maybe one person who's not (as she wasn't even there at the second lecture), and then me, an attempting minor. So that's a little intimidating, because they have a lot of background knowledge to draw on and they know how to write and speak about music. Well the professor is very into it all, integrating both organized writing and stream of consciousness writing with listening to the music and especially exposing ourselves to music with which we're uncomfortable. There is to be lots of discussion and class interaction, etc. So I was pretty scared the first day, since I thought this was gonna be like jazz history where I listened to lectures and caught up on textbook reading, wrote one simple paper at the end and a couple of jazz performance reviews...yeah. Not this class. It's gonna be pretty intense, and I'll have to dredge up writing skills I haven't touched since freshman first semester. So much for an easy class...
[second class] We shared our "exotic" music selections and I found that I could participate in this collaborative discussion without sounding like a total idiot. I probably accomplished that though when I did not have much of a way to explain why my Praful song was "exotic". Oh well, hopefully that moment can be forgotten. For some reason I felt slightly less scared of the impending syllabus (though probably not because she kept saying we would be nervous but it would turn out okay) - with the major exception of this partner-project thing, which I'll worry about until I see how the partner issue pans out (ugh). I'll also have to see how well I can get myself going with these writing assignments.

CIS 399: Special Topics: Linux/Unix in the 21st Century
[first and only class so far] Jean Griffin, who teaches 110, is listed as the instructor for this, so I guess maybe "officially" Zachary Goldberg is a TA, but as of the first day, he appears to be essentially teaching the course. I mean, his name is on the slides so I assume he made them. He's a good speaker - already more naturally engaging (or I thought so anyway) than Ryan, who taught our Python course. (Don't worry, I like Ryan in his own way.) The funny part is he's in my grade (so Dan told me, and once we got to class, I recognized him, and I think he was even in 260 with us haha), but that's ok cuz supposedly he knows this stuff really well, and I don't think that's an exaggeration. He's starting with the very basics of Linux, which is awesome because that's what I need! I'm really excited for this class, cuz like databases, I'm gonna learn something that I know almost nothing about beforehand...except Linux is just kinda cooler than databases from the start. :P Also I noticed I am one of like three total girls in the class; all the rest is guys. Oh well haha.


The semester is gonna be crazy, I bet. 262 alone could drown me in painful work. I am hoping databases and Linux won't be bad, and hopefully interesting!! Web design should be good too, maybe my only semi-respite from the rest. I can see 460 being really intense, because if 277 was really intense and it was just the "intro" to this class, then we all must be really in for it. And music, well, it'll be its own kind of crazy, I'm afraid. I really did think I was pretty much done with writing. I guess it's a good skill to prune every once in awhile, at least (hahaha). Very different from last semester and even last year - no psych, music is back, digging 260-type of thinking out for 262, and totally ground-level new subjects. At the very least, it will be interesting. Here we goooo! (This good mood I've been in recently must be in part because I have done almost no work yet...possibly due to the fact I am lacking some key textbooks... I will need to beginning devoting time and energy to work-mode soon.)


Results: speed blogging? Kind of failed. Partly by distraction of thinking of Jeff and Sunita, which led to emailing Jeff, and also by a bit of chatting with Carlin. I'll try harder in the future.