My New Life

Traditionally in high school, I'd write about all my classes after the first day. It feels strange doing it in the middle of the year, but since all my classes are new, I suppose it's appropriate. Unfortunately (or perhaps fortunately), since I have work to do and it's rather late, I will keep this brief.

15-251 (Great Theoretical Ideas in Computer Science): This class is half the reason CS classes are referred to by number and not by name. Supposedly one of the most challenging classes at CMU, it's required for all computer science majors. Do not be misled by the title. This is a math class. The computer science department just decided that having the word "math" in one of their required courses was unacceptable. Therefore, at least according to Arvind, they replaced "math" with a synonym - "Great."

21-484 (Graph Theory): This is a required class for me, but in reality the reason I'm taking it now is because of the Professor. John Mackey, the most popular math professor in the school, is teaching it, and as you may recall he reminds me distinctly of Dr. Osborne. He is absolutely hilarious, quite informative, and very approachable. Actually, this worked to my disadvantage once, because I'm fairly sure he noticed me skipping class one day in Concepts of Math.

21-341 (Linear Algebra): The professor here is some old Russian dude with a heavy accent. I have no idea why, but he gives everyone the impression that he's really nice. I wonder how we got that impression, because it's at times very difficult to understand what he's saying. Today he couldn't figure out how to work the projector and consequently had to write the entire lecture in a 1 ft. by 1 ft. box of blackboard. I think his arm was tired from erasing.

15-123 (Effective Programming in C and Unix): Maybe the CS department needs to work on its course titles. Was the "Effective" really necessary? It would surprise me if they taught us to program ineffectively ... regardless, programming is the necessary evil of my major (at least in my opinion) so I'm hoping I can get this over with and not fail. That would be awesome.

82-132 (Elementary Chinese II): The original class size, in Elementary Chinese I, was around 20 students. I walked in to find a small circle set up, and to find that I was the last person to arrive. The problem? There were only 6 students already there. I can't hide when I don't know the answer anymore :( I also have a new teacher. He began the class by informing us that he had only given 2 B's last semester, and those were to people who didn't show up for the final presentations. Well ... okay then ...

Overall it was a good, if brutal day. I had to sit through 5 hours of class! How did I ever pull that off in high school ...