Category Archives: School

That place I have to go to.

fffff – a tale of failures.

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Since I have a blog, I figure I should blog once in a while. Don’t worry, I’ll be back to blogging too much about animu and politics shortly. So this term has been not quite as keikaku as I’d have liked. This has been fairly enlightening as I try to figure out just wtf I’m going to be doing and how future terms are going to be affected.

Act I: Analysis

I’d already mentioned before that Complex Analysis was a crazy roadblock that put me on to the road to proposed and much easier plan requirements. This was clearly because I was insufficiently prepared for the material. Even though the lecture material made sense as we went through it and the textbook was pretty much the same thing, it was determined that I didn’t have the adequate foundational knowledge in analysis and the intuition that comes with solving those sorts of problems.

So, this was for the best, it seemed. After all, dropping one course wouldn’t be too bad.

Act II: First-Order Logic

Now this, this is failure. This is where we learn that the Rudy 08 strategy does not work when applied to coursework. After not having gotten a passing mark on any assignment, I decided to seek the advice of the TA before the midterm. It boiled down to understanding the solutions to the problems, which I felt like I had a pretty good handle on, especially after relearning everything.

As it turns out, it wasn’t good enough and I failed the midterm. I decided that the chances of my passing were very slim at this point and decided to abandon ship.

This course was a very interesting experience for me. Unlike Complex Analysis, where I was insufficiently prepared, this course should have been cake. I did well in my first logic course and I enjoyed computability theory in the CS context. It turns out that that would be my downfall, because it seems that that was some sort of mental block that made it impossible for me to solve the problems in such a way that it would satisfy the subject in a pure mathematical context.

I don’t think I’ve ever had a course baffle me like that before. I’d go do an assignment, feeling confident that I’d solved the problems fairly competently and find that I was doing it wrong. I’d look at the solutions and try and see what went wrong, internalized the mistakes, and took a stab at the next assignment and, again, felt confident. The cycle would repeat all the way to the midterm.

Epilogue

I walked away from this entire debacle understanding just where my interests in mathematics lie. The things that attracted me to pure math wasn’t exactly the purity and the theory. It was exactly the things in math that I found cool (algebra and number theory) and pure math was the only way I could study those things. And as much as I might want to think otherwise, I’m still much more of a computer scientist than any other kind of mathematician.

3B: アニメじゃない

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By popular demand, here’s a post that’s not about animu. Let’s see what delights my 3B term is bringing me.

CS 462: Formal Languages and Parsing (He)

This was one of the courses I was most looking forward to. And then I found out the prof I that I thought was teaching the course (who is a really awesome prof) was going on sabbatical. щ(ﾟДﾟщ)

The actual prof isn’t that great in lecture. His speaking isn’t very good and neither are his board notes. He’s pretty good when emailed though, so I just read the textbook and imagine it’s the author (who was the prof I wanted to get) lecturing instead and I just take notes.

The course itself is pretty cool. It seems to be more CS 360 stuff and in the same order too, going from finite automata and regular languages to context free languages and then to Turing machines. Thank God for Jeffrey Shallit’s book, A Second Course in Formal Languages and Automata Theory. I think I’m going to keep it.

CS 466: Algorithm Design and Analysis (Biedl)

This is another really cool course. In terms of content, it seems like it’s just more CS 341: here’s a problem, now let’s try to solve it and refine the solution. Now, we have a few more techniques that didn’t make it into CS 341.

I really liked the prof for this course when I took CS 360, enough to change my plans and push STAT 231 even later. But, having Timothy Chan guest lecture one class sort of convinced me I probably would’ve been okay if I’d decided to hold off on it until spring. Still, really good prof with really good board notes, although I find her equations and formulas really, really verbose. This preference for verbosity over notation seems to be a thing that’s really common among CS profs, actually.

PMATH 352: Complex Analysis (Spronk)

This was probably the class I was most worried about, since the last time I had anything to do with calculus was in 2A, which was two years ago. And it turns out my fears were completely realized. The class itself seemed pretty interesting, but it became clear that I had no idea what was going on when the time came to do assignments.

The prof was really helpful when I talked with him about it. This eventually lead to me dropping the course on his suggestion and altering my program plan to a more achievable one. He’s also really good in lecture and is one of those profs that proves and notes every detail. He writes really fast though.

PMATH 432: First Order Logic and Computability (Csima)

So I learned too late that I probably should have chosen PMATH 434 (Computational Number Theory) over this one. The course content for this was essentially a more intense version of CS 245 combined with what I believe will end up being the solvability parts from CS 360 and CS 341. Well, the stuff on solvability might make it worth taking this course, so we’ll see. This course is also kind of annoying because there’s always something that I’m missing in a proof that causes me to hemorrhage marks.

The prof is alright and has pretty good board notes, although she does get mixed up a bit sometimes. I don’t blame her, when you’re going on about models of stuff and interpretations of stuff, it’s not easy to keep track of it.

PMATH 442: Fields and Galois Theory (Liu)

Best course of 3B. Remember when I said rings and fields were awesome and groups were kind of meh? Well, Galois theory tells us that groups can be alright. It just takes something interesting like fields to make groups cool, that’s all. So yeah, field theory (and by extension, ring theory) is pretty awesome.

The prof for this course is great. Her accent needs about one class to get used to and then you’re good. Best board notes of the term. The thing that sets her apart, though, is that she cares about the students. She’s always asking us for our opinions on things about the class and tries to make sure that we understand everything and reminds us that if we’re having trouble, we can always ask her for help and stuff.

UW logo critique-athon

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Unlike other terrible ideas that no one liked, Waterloo decided it was probably not a good idea to press ahead with a logo that was universally loathed. In a rare moment of humility, they even decided to solicit feedback from real people. Of course, all this is for naught if the new logos are as terrible as the old ones.

2hduzyv
AHAHAHAHAHAHA. It’s pretty terrible. （　´_ゝ`）

logo2

Here, we have the first new one. It’s a huge improvement over the other one. The most obvious criticisms of Unlimited Laser Works were the billions of lines and the billions of colours used. The first is taken care of by focusing on black and gold, the school’s colours. The second is taken care of by the slight tilt and cutting the top a bit. That conveys the dynamism or whatever without having tons of crazy lines flying all over the place.

I wouldn’t mind this one at all, although I think some explanation of the process and what it symbolizes would help make it more interesting. Of course, I’m not going to whine and say it’s too plain, because it’s worlds better than the other extreme.

logo3

At first glance, this one is kind of unsettling because of the way the E fits in with the T and R. But if you take a look on the stationary (the letterhead and the business card), those three lines becomes a really clever little motif that is really flexible. I think it’s a lot better than the random curvy lines that they’re using now. It’s also not too hard to change for faculty use, just by swapping the gold for a faculty colour.

I think this one grew on me and became my choice. The problem with the other one is that it doesn’t have any strong elements that could be taken on its own, so the use of the giant W is forced upon you. This one also has the advantage of a fairly distinct wordmark.

3A: Over the halfway hump

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Even though my carefully crafted course sequences were thwarted, I’ve gotta say that 3A has been my most enjoyable term so far.

PMATH 346: Group Theory (Lawrence)

I was expecting this to be as killer and awesome as PMATH 345. Fortunately, it wasn’t as killer, because the prof was nicer to us on the midterm. Unfortunately, I don’t really like groups as much as rings. Oh well, still pretty fascinating. In theory, groups come before rings, but rings are so much cooler. The prof is pretty good.

PMATH 340: Elementary Number Theory (Ingram)

I was expecting this to be easy and interesting. I was right about the easy. The first half of the course was essentially MATH 135 over again. I didn’t think the prof’s lecturing was terribly interesting, but he had excellent course notes which allowed me to not go to class. I would have loved to have Vanderburgh though.

CS 360: Introduction to the Theory of Computing (Biedl)

This class is pretty awesome and the prof is pretty awesome. One of my favourite classes, this one starts with finite automata and regular languages, moves on to context-free languages and grammars, and ends with Turing machines and solvability. It wasn’t hard to pick up the material and it’s super interesting. The prof is so awesome that I reworked my course sequences so that I could take CS 466 (Algorithm Design and Analysis) with her.

CS 341: Algorithms (Shallit)

This is also another fascinating course. Basically, the course is structured so that in the first part, you go through techniques to design algorithms and examine problems and various algorithms to solve those problems. After that, you move on to looking at lower bounds on problems. Then, you have a look at graph problems: minimum spanning tree and shortest path algorithms. The final part of the course is the most interesting, looking at complexity classes and NP-completeness in particular. The prof is also really awesome. I’m looking forward to having him again for CS 462 (Formal Languages and Parsing).

CS 350: Operating Systems (Aboulnaga)

Operating system theory is kind of interesting, but not enough to keep me concentrated after the other two CS lectures. Oh well.

2B||!2B

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Always returns true, durr.

Anyway, I realized I hadn’t put up any appraisal of what I took for the last few terms (so 2A coop, 2B, and 2B coop, hence 2B hurr hurr hurr), so instead of studying, I will do that now.

ECON 102: Introduction to Macroeconomics (Smith)

I took this during my 2A coop term. Larry Smith is super-duper entertaining. In addition to that, it was nice that he incorporated economic happenings from the real world as they happened. I regret not being in Waterloo for his commentary in Fall 2008 when the financial crisis became too big to ignore and Obama was elected. An excellent introduction to macroeconomics.

LS 101: Introduction to Legal Studies (DE)

I took this during my 2B coop term through distance education. Nothing special here, just a course that goes through the basics of law in Canada. Pretty easy, what with one paper and one final and no effort put into either netting me a very good mark. I guess if you suck at writing, you shouldn’t take it?

CS 240: Data Structures and Data Management (Chinaei)

Not a terrible prof, but I bought CLRS, so I wasn’t missing too much.

CS 246: Software Abstraction and Specification (Davis)

Again, not terrible, but the course was just C++, obscure UML details, memorizing design patterns, and long tedious assignments.

CS 251: Computer Organization and Design (Cowan)

I’m not a fan of low-level stuff and this was pretty much the lowest-level course that CS has. I already took SE 141, so that saved me for the first half of the course, but the second half seemed like obscure architecture details. It didn’t help that the prof liked to go on long tangents, both in lecture and on assignments.

STAT 230: Probability (Chisholm)

I wasn’t in her section, but I went to one class with the prof that I was supposed to have and never went back. I hate statistics, but she was a really good prof and made it bearable.

PMATH 345: Rings, Polynomials, and Finite Fields (McKinnon)

This was my favourite course of the term. Of course, this was also my hardest course, and I pretty much got destroyed. But I loved the course content. And the prof was awesome too. It might be my favourite course I’ve taken so far. Of course, it’d be my lowest mark too. Go figure.