As Fall term comes to an end, I am eagerly trying to wrap up all of my assignments in order to get as early of a start to Winter break as possible. Luckily I only have one final, and the rest of my classes have final projects. The projects are all due this week, so the next few days will certainly be packed. However, I prefer this as opposed to dragging out finals into next week.
Calculus (Mth 251):
Admittedly, I have been putting off calc for as long as I possibly could. I have been terrified of taking this class, because of the horrible things I’ve heard about limits and derivatives. I must have built up this awful image in my head, because it honestly wasn’t nearly as bad as I thought it would be. The concepts weren’t overly confusing, and the professor, Dr. Brittanney Adelmann was incredible. The algebra was honestly the toughest part. The professor posted worksheets each week which went along with her video lectures. I found that if I printed the worksheets, and worked through them with her during her lectures, it helped solidify the knowledge. She also had weekly online homework, weekly written homework, and biweekly quizzes. The online homework gave you unlimited attempts at solving a problem which helped create a low-stress learning environment. The written homework was graded mostly on participation, with one of the 5 or 6 questioned being graded on accuracy, and the quizzes were graded completely on accuracy. I really appreciated her teaching style and found I learned a lot better with this style of teaching.
Social & Ethical Issues of Computer Science (CS 391):
This course was fascinating, however the workload felt a little excessive. Generally speaking, I usually enjoy writing and find I use writing intensive courses as a good creative outlet. However, the wordcounts for this class felt like a stretch. I found myself spending hours on an assignment that should only take 20-30 minutes; solely due to the intense wordcount requirements. Between all of the weekly assignments, I found I was writing around 3,000 words almost each week, plus a lot of independent research, homework, etc for this 3 credit course. Based on the stellar reviews I saw from students who took the course previously, I am curious if this was a new implementation and if this might be adjusted for future students. Besides this, the course was excellent. Dr. Safonte was engaged and accessible throughout the term, and you could tell she cares about the material and the students. She had a good mix of reading material as well as several YouTube videos, Ted talks, and interactive websites for her learning materials. I found this helpful and really enjoyed the class.
Computer Networks (CS 372):
This class doesn’t have a stellar reputation and gets a lot of flack from other CS students. Honestly, I enjoyed the class and felt like it’s taught as well as it can be. Yes, it’s a dry topic- but all things considered, I found the professor to be engaging and the learning material as good as it can be. I have a great appreciation when professors take the time to incorporate video lectures, or outside learning material. There’s nothing worse than jumping into a required course to find out you’re only provided with a wall of text to read through and try to comprehend. Professor Lewis incorporated video lectures, animations, textbook readings, examples, and several practice “check your knowledge” questions which helped a ton. The programming assignments were vague and difficult, but I found that if you start them early, you generally have more than enough time complete them. When in doubt, I did what I could to get my output to look as close as possible to the example screenshot provided, and I ended up with 100% on each assignment (so far!) I was actually surprised at how much I enjoyed this course.
Senior Software Engineering Project 1 (CS 461):
This has also been an enjoyable class! We’ve spent the majority of the term communicating with our project sponsor and building our requirements and design documents. Our sponsor has been excellent to work with and our team has gotten along pretty well so far. It has been challenging to coordinate asynchronous times to meet, but we have managed fairly well so far and I look forward to developing a more effective working relationship with the team over the next few terms. I think that the skills we develop as we collaborate, compromise, communicate, and work together will be extremely beneficial as we prepare ourselves for future careers in the field.
