It's that time of the year again! Personally, I feel like after a semester is over, I completely forget how hard it was to study for all my courses. So, I'd like to take this opportunity (once again) to reflect on how the Fall semester went and record it for posterity :).
CPSC 331 (Data Structures and Algorithms), Required
Most computer science graduates will say that this was one of the most useful courses for their career, because it teaches important skills for technical interviews and the workplace. I completely agree, and you should pay full attention to this course even if it's boring in the moment. However, I found the grading for this course to be whimsical, where if you made a small mistake or did things differently than expected (but still correctly), you could lose full marks for the question which is a BIG HIT and disheartening. I had to argue back grades several times (luckily, they were arguable) including the final exam grade for which there was an hours-long line during office hours. The professor was also unreachable by email. I would give this course an 8/10 for content and a 5.5/10 for how it was handled.
ENTI 381 (Innovation-Driven Entrepreneurship), Optional, Block Week
A block week course is taken in the week before semester starts, and of course effort is concentrated in those days. I felt that this course was educational and pretty fun, making the 8-hour classes feel shorter. After class was when the real work began, with several group papers that we worked on until 11pm. In block week, group members generally don't procrastinate, which is great. The very difficult part about these papers is that the business idea we were given to evaluate felt difficult to research and we were expected to be very detailed. The grading standards were very high for this course and we only got like 2/5 grades back until they were all released at the end of the Fall semester. Luckily, our official grade ended up being curved. I would give this course a 7/10 and recommend it for block week (it will be very tiring though).
PHIL 314 (Information Technology Ethics), Required
This was probably the least time-consuming course I have taken so far in my degree, as there are very few assessments and they are quite straightforward (you just have to write a lot). I found the content to be thought-provoking and important. There's not much else to say... just put in effort to think about the content and your own perspective. I would rate this course an 8/10.
ENTI 407 (Digital Entrepreneurship Technology), Optional
This course is actually quite relevant to computer science students. Even though there is no actual coding, you learn about using tools to quickly prototype an application or automate things. The assignments were quite fun and straightforward, there is also a group project (as to be expected with an ENTI course) and an individual final project which are quite big and require creativity. A computer science background helps a lot with using no-code tools which have a code-like workflow. The course wasn't too difficult but I felt that the final projects were not graded transparently (wish there was more of a rubric). I would rate this course a 7.5/10.
CPSC 351 (Theoretical Foundations of CS 2), Required
I was very worried about this course, as it is known for its difficulty. The professor enjoys putting a lot of bonus mathematical information in the lecture videos, so watch out for when he says something is not required. There were several points when new material felt incomprehensible and illogical - when this happens to you, spend a lot of time trying to understand and read/watch online material, and hopefully you will get an aha moment (and then practice some more)! Many people I talked to before said that the professor was a tough grader - I actually disagree and felt that he was very lenient towards mistakes if you had the right idea (unfortunately, many students did not have the right idea). Tests provide opportunities for bonus marks as well, and I really enjoyed learning about this side of computer science. I would controversially rate this course an 8.5/10.
MATH 311 (Linear Methods 2), Optional
Having found MATH 211 (Linear Methods 1) very difficult, I was conflicted about taking this course with even more difficult content. I decided to take it for future courses and my own learning. Surprisingly, I actually found it much more manageable than the first one. It is more well-paced and being taught in-person rather than through a textbook makes a world of difference. In addition, since tests are manually graded, you won't lose full marks for a single computational mistake. I only wish some things were more intuitively explained before they were proven or used, as there were a few moments of "I have no idea what was going on" until it was further explained in a tutorial or I researched it online. I also want to give kudos to the Math department for having quick grading and professors who teach consistently well. I would rate this course an 8/10.
Conclusion
This was definitely my hardest semester so far, and it seems like Winter may be even harder (we'll see). However, I think it was worth it in the end. If you have additional questions or your own opinions for similar (or the same) courses, please leave them in the comments!
Until next time,
Ana
Yep... Uni is hard!
ReplyDelete