End of term

Looking back on this course, man, it was tough, but I really do feel like I learned a lot. Staying up late nights trying to understand the confusing halting problem, or remembering how limits work, those were where most of the learning happened, suffering with my peers. I'm glad the course is ending because, wow it was a real workout for my brain, but at the same time, I'm excited to try CSC236 and see what next lies in store. I just need to do my best on the final exam and then hope for the best!

Big O

A have to say, while proofs had me feeling more confident in this course, that confidence was immediately crushed when we started to learn big oh. I have no idea what is going on. I'm doing my best to understand and keep up, but then with each lecture, I'm again struggling to stay afloat. When people help and explain it to me it makes sense, but when I try it on my own.... less success. Unfortunately, my plan for now is to just not give up with the hope that eventually the crucial missing link will click.

Proofs And My Assignment Mishap. :(

The past couple weeks, we worked on proofs. We proved many things that were very obviously true or false at first glance which was very difficult at first since I couldn't get over the face that they were so obviously true by looking at them! But once I figured out the thought process to do these, I found them much less daunting. The second assignment, I found, was tough, but much easier than the first assignment, probably because now I am used to all the symbolic notation (unfortunately, I sleepily submitted it to somewhere on the CSC148 markus so there goes my 8%....).
Anyway, I'm pretty excited to do this midterm, I think. I feel really ready for it.

Proofs

This week in class seemed to go much easier than the previous, though to be very honest, I really got a hang of all the symbols. The proofs are a little tricky, I think, but since doing many in MAT137, I've got a pretty decent grasp on it that I wont fall menacingly behind. The difference is that in math, there are a lot of words and everything is just explained very explicitly, but I dont think it'll be too much of a problem. I'm actually very excited to see how this chapter goes!

Week 3

This week wasn't nearly as bad as the previous. I think I'm starting to get a better feel for this class and the concepts that are taught. I really enjoyed learning about the truth tables, maybe because they were easy to understand, but also because they made a lot of other things easier to understand. If I am ever confused about a statement, I will be pulling out my truth table.

The last lecture of the week hosted the paper folding experiment. It sounded very simple when Prof. Heap was explaining it, but once my group and I tried it, I could see it was going to be more complicated. However, I quickly noticed that due to the way the paper is being folded each time, there must be some kind of anti-symmetry thing going on, and that thought boosted us through the rest of the assignment. I enjoyed trying to draw out the folds, each with a 90 degree angle, to see what shape it would make. Everything just made sense after that.

Week 2 Of Class - So far, haven't died.

Well before class started, people would tell me that CSC165 was a difficult class. Now that I have had the chance to be in class, I can see why. Having never taken any class on such a topic, I was quickly lost in a sea of "if true, " "false," and "any," even though I had poured over the notes and lecture slides before hand. It was little comfort seeing my peers around me looking confused and whispering frantic questions at each other. In addition, I'm a bit embarrassed to admit this, but I only understood what question 2 of the tutorial exercise was asking five minutes before the quiz (but I think I ended up doing just fine, fingers crossed).

I think the hardest part of this course for me right now is how many symbols and operators are used and talked about. For example, the names of three sets are M, F, and E, which when I think about, makes perfect sense! But when someone is talking about it, all I hear are the letter and words. It's so hard for me when I can't see worked out on paper, while spoken words wash over me so easily, making lectures the most frustrating part of my day. I think the only thing I can do about it is to talk about the class material and discuss problems with other people to practice being bombarded with letters and numbers and "trues" and "falses." So I'll try that and hopefully it works out for me by next week.

EDIT: Just wanted to add --
Now every time I see the words "if" or "then" in every day life, my heart skips a beat.