.::output >> /dev/null::.

There is always the need for some form of a semester reflection. It makes the semester seem more meaningful for me. And this semester has been a very enriching one at that. Not only had I learn that certain courses are more demanding than others but also that some courses are just not worth taking and it is all right in my opinion to not even bother. Of course what courses are worth taking and which are to be left on the do-not-bother list is highly self-dependent but you can get a pretty decent estimate if you are right or not by talking to other people in the same situation.

Here are some courses that I took this semester:

• ECE 440
  This can be very well be one of the most useless classes I have taken this semester (or in this university). The irony was that it did seem rather interesting in the first half of the semester. And I did study a lot for it and did all the homework. But in the second half of the semester it really took a turn for the worst. The concepts relied on "understanding" of real-life problems that I would not consider as phantom-able. Some problems were just outright ridiculous for someone who has no interest and no prior lab experience. The way my lecturer try to motivate interest by pointing out how lucrative this field is did not help me as I am more of an academic person - meaning that I am somewhat detached from worldly financial greed.
  My conclusion for this course would have to be that it could have been better if I had an instructor who would derive the equations on the blackboard instead of keeping his hands clean by using the overhead projector showing some powerpoint slides that he made. To make matters worse, he has a very bad sense of color (a fact he too realized but never did anything to changed and also which I made it a point to indicate on his evaluation form). The book could have been better chosen too. It was written in a very verbiage manner with little inclusion of examples that did not require some form of plug-and-chuck.
  My advice to students taking this course would be to take this under someone else besides my professor (it is rather difficult to tell you who he is because I do not want to disclose his name, so just talk to other students as they know who is the better professor). And make sure that you are really interested in $$ or at least have some affinity for self inflicted pain. A better-written book would be nice too. Not to mention some real lab sessions to actually know what the instructor or the book is talking about.
• MUS 133
  This is my first gen. ed course at this university. And I am glad that I took it. It really broaden my perspective of things. For instance, I learned the differences between northern and southern Indian music, the different genres of Caribbean music, various forms of middle-eastern music and asian world music. The emphasis on each was slightly different but they presented a coherent introduction to world music.
  The in-class live performances by various figures from the music department made the class even more entertaining. Moreover, I was privileged to have an enthusiastic TA who made the course very simple.
  If there is one course that I would recommend, it would be this one. At least for a gen. ed. The textbook is pretty expensive but I guess if you have no idea how to tell the difference between Rumba, Salsa, Reggae, etc this is one course that you will know. It makes for good conversation contents as well.
• CS 423
  Another interesting technical course. The only regret was the range of topics chosen: so many that a detailed view of some were not given and an over-emphasis of others were too prevalent. The range of topics is very instructor dependent. The textbook was particularly useful and fun to read even. It has some subtle satire that people in the computer field would understand.
  However the stupid nachos system that they use for this MP leaves much to be desired. The was a stupid tutorial given in the first week that did little to illuminate the internals of nachos. Nachos, is the ubiquitous OS system that runs on top of most campus computers because they use it for their OS class. I am sure that the answers are online somewhere; just that every university keeps it to themselves. The solutions for the machine problems are never released because "... we cannot release the solutions because the MPs for next semester is similar. Feel free to discuss it with a TA or other students though after the assignment is due." Stupid. I bet most of the TAs just do some one-line change to the MPs to make them different. Or they have some repository of MPs that they choose from. Use minix or even linux for goodness sakes! Use minix if you want to be able to dissect everything. And use linux for its real life applications.
  The exams were also somewhat useless and do not reflect your understanding of the course. If you can remember everything from the lecture slides and the book you will do fine. There are very few coding questions. And for my instructor, it was a bit ridiculous because she asked algorithm questions that you would usually read up and code: draw the gantt scheduling graph for this FIFO process scheduling. Or show the cylinder head for the shortest-seek-time-first algorithm. This questions do little to test how good you are and they are easy to get wrong because they involve tedious calculations and writing.
  If there is any advice I can offer, it would be that you just attend lecture and find out what your instructor would be testing on. Then just read the book for your own personal satisfaction. It is a very interesting book even though it was last revised almost 4 years ago.
  And do not attempt to try to help each other on the MP. Hard as the MP may be, any similarities would be considered cheating. The irony is that they do not catch students who just copied the answers from a student that took it in the previous semester.
• CS 427
  Another interesting class. Software Engineering. Teaches you more about the process of creating software and then let you go select your own product to create. The software processes we learn are eXtreme Programming (XP), Rational Unified Process (RUP), and crystal clear. And the product we created is called Idea Incubator. Sometimes I think it is Idea(D) Incubator since some of the ideas there just lie dormant. Surprisingly our main (and sole) customer for the product is our TA.
  What did I learn from this class? That main the textbook was poorly written. And that the 1.5 hours for a lecture is too much for this class. To make sure that he talks for that long he usually rambles as he gets to the last few slides and begin to ask unintelligent questions that few bother to answer. The other textbooks for the class were good though and the online resources are even better. The instructor knows his stuff but it is hard for him to impart it to us. Homework assignments were graded harshly and sometimes they took points off for things that were not required. And the most annoying part was that there was no online gradebook to check your grades! It is almost unspoken and unheard of for such a thing to happen in a CS class!
  XP was something that I like learning about. The unit testing part was interesting and I can see how it can be useful. Pair-programming was a nice experience but it is too bad you cannot apply it in any other class because they will call it cheating. Iterative development is nice because it teaches you that customers do not remember what they want 2 weeks ago. For instance:
  me: Are you sure you want this feature?
  customer: Yes. It is better this way.
  me: Are you certain? Most other people will find this hard to use and even annoying
  customer: I am very sure. Just do it like I want it.
  when done
  customer: I like it! Nice! You did it like I told you.
  few weeks later
  customer: Why is this combo box behaving like this? This is weird behavior!
  Customer is Romanian so imagine his accent
  More importantly, I like the lectures on human computer interaction. It is certainly something that I hope to get into. And also, I experience the power of the Eclipse IDE while coding the product for this class.

If any of you are wondering why I took only 4 courses: I dropped ECE411 which is also a weird class. It is required for all computer engineering majors, even for those of us who would not want to deal with computer architecture. And it is 4 credit hours. It was a smart move to have dropped it earlier.

As you can see, those reflections are not written consistently. By that I mean that I am not attempting to present everything that I have thought of in a linear manner. On the other hand, they serve to illustrate what I remember most about that particular course.