Week 4: Feb 6 – Feb 12

What did you do this past week?

This past week my partner and I have started the second project. We completed figuring out how to read inputs and are currently just trying to finish the project. Also, I had a group assignment due Friday in another class that I spent time to work on. Other than that, I haven’t had much school work.

 

What’s in your way?

This upcoming week is my first hell week of the semester, starting with 2 tests and this project due. Not only that, career fair is on Tuesday that I need to get prepped for. It will be hard to manage all my different classes.

 

What will you do next week?

This week will consist of mostly studying, working, and preparing for all the things listed above. My two tests are both Monday and Tuesday with the career fair on the same day. Therefore, these upcoming days will be focused on doing well in those tasks. Afterwards, its crunch time for this project, which is why my partner and I started fairly early since we have much of the same classes.

 

What’s my experience of the class?

As the class goes on, the more stressful it gets. The projects itself have seen an increase in difficulty starting with figuring out how to read inputs. Also, this past week I have not being doing so well on the in-class quizzes, mostly due to silly mistakes while evaluating the coding questions.

 

What’s my pick-of-the-week or tip-of-the-week?

My pick-of-the-week is actually a whole new subreddit I stumble across this past week called /r/cscareerquestions. It’s a bunch of posts of questions about interviews at different companies or advice on preparing for such interviews like hackerrank-based interviews.

Week 3: Jan 30 – Feb 5

What did you do this past week?

This past week I have worked on Collatz vigorously. It took quite a lot of time because I couldn’t come up with any more ways to speed up my program than I already have. In the end, I ended up making many of my caches quite big. Other than that, my school work hasn’t been so bad. I had one algorithms problem set due and a lab.

 

What’s in your way?

After experiencing the whole first project and it’s ups and downs, I believe that I got into the swing of things and am capable of moving on smoothly. Luckily, project 2 is with a partner so they can keep me in check and vice versa.

 

What will you do next week?

This week me and my partner have decided to work on the project as soon as possible. We both started the last project a week before it was due and we were both stressing out, so we have agreed to not go through that again. Other than that, I have another project for a textiles class due on Friday and another problem set and lab due Tuesday. I also need to start preparing for Spring career fair as it is coming in less than a week.

 

What’s my experience of the class?

This week was a very stressful week for this class to say the least, and I will admit it was 100% my fault. I was just stuck on our first project for two days and couldn’t pass the last four tests of Hackerrank. In class, however, was actually very refreshing. On Wednesday,  Bloomberg came in to give us a talk about what they do and their experiences as a UTCS graduate in the real world. It was very interesting, and Bloomberg seemed like a great place to work.

 

What’s my pick-of-the-week or tip-of-the-week?

My tip-of-the-week is something that I’ve been been struggling to do myself. It is always good to try and plan out your code before you actually write it. You want to make sure you know what you’re doing and how exactly it’ll work before you start. If you code blindly and find out that your code does not actually work as you though it would, you waste so much time and it’s quite heartbreaking.

Week 2: Jan 23 – Jan 29

What did you do this past week?

This past week is really the first actual week of school. Everything is going into full gear, all my classes are covering material and my labs have started. Relating to this class, I got started on our first project, Collatz. I was able to get everything set up and began coding and optimizing. Meanwhile, my extracurricular practices have just started up, taking up just 2 hours every night.

What’s in your way?

As mentioned above and last post, my practices have started and they’re taking up a portion of what little free time I have after classes. Luckily, the work load in my other classes are not as much as I expected them to be, or at least not yet. However, some classes will need my time in order for me to learn the content, as they are just conceptually hard.

What will you do next week?

This upcoming week I will be working on our project as much as possible, as that is the main thing I have coming up. By doing that, I will able to start getting used to the applications we use, like github and Travis CI. It will also let me get used to the workflow of the class, and hopefully later projects will go a lot smoother than this one.

What’s my experience of the class?

So far, the class has been smooth. The quizzes, while stressful, have gone fairly good for me (minus the one where I forgot how to shift). This week is my first time being called out in class for a question. It’s a very nerve-racking experience, as there is some pressure to seem like you know what you are doing. It’s easy to doubt everything I say, especially when Prof. Downing asks for more substance to my answers. But otherwise, it’s so far an interesting class.

What’s my pick-of-the-week or tip-of-the-week?

My pick-of-the-week is actually a reddit post I found on the UT Austin subreddit. It describes a UTCS senior who did poorly his freshman year and brought his grades and overall experience up from what it was. It’s something to think about if you’re in the same position as he is. There is always hope, even for us CS kids!

Week 1: Jan 16 – Jan 22

What did you do this past week?

As the new semester starts, the first week has come by with a breeze. In many of my classes, including this one, we have gone through most of the syllabus. However, Prof. Downing wasted little time in getting into the meat of the work. Before we knew it, we were introduced to many thing, and questioned a lot of things we thought we knew (specifically Java). We went over the concepts of cycle length and how to compute them, and also l- and r-values and how each language uses them.

What’s in your way?

Out of the two semesters per year, Spring semester is always the busier of the two. This is due to the extracurricular activities I participate in having huge events this semester and, therefore, many practices and hours put into our events. Coming from taking 13 hours last semester, I added an extra class. Therefore, this will cut into my time for both myself and all my other classes.

What will you do next week?

Next week is where the real stuff begins and all my classes go into full swing. Now that the first project is out, I plan on going over it and start coming up with my basic solution so I can expand on it in the coming weeks. With that in mind, I need to decide on which of the three options I want to do my projects over. While i’m leaning towards using UTCS computers at the moment simply because their familiar, Docker is looking a lot nicer and, more importantly, convenient.

What’s my experience of the class?

So far, my experience in this class has been rather pleasant. Prof. Downing’s teaching style is very engaging, both in the way he lectures and how he involves the students. The chance that your name can be called to answer a question is, quite frankly, terrifying though forces me to pay attention. Not only that but the daily quizzes forces you to also pay attention to everything that has been said, just so you don’t miss any questions related to lecture material.

What’s my pick-of-the-week or tip-of-the-week?

My tip of the week is to familiarize yourself with the programs that you decide to use for your projects, whether it be Docker, the UTCS machines, or installing all necessary programs. It’s imperative to get this done sooner or later so you don’t waste valuable time that could be spent on your project by being confused about how to operative. On an non-CS related note, I suggest everyone to be sure to get yourself situated on your schedule to get back into the groove, especially by fixing your terrible sleep schedule I know you have.