So, my plan for semester #5 seems to be finalized. I did not do too well in the Physics test out – apparently they cover less in the summer iteration of the course than they test for in the test-out. This mean I will have to take Phys 272 in semester #6 (ah well, a GPA booster) with CS 497, a course on logic (where we get to program using prolog – this I am looking forward to) and of course another CS course (crypto maybe?).
So this semester I am really looking forward to my compilers class, the last portion of my numerical methods class and of course my CS 490 project with Dr. Kihara and of course I want to achieve my goal of being able to watch anime without having to read subtitles.
This would also be one of the only semesters where a book for which I paid $30 on amazon looks like it was printed by one of those shady book-vendors in the streets of Hyderabad. Seriously the book by Skeele is printed on paper that is coarse and it just doesn’t look like a decent textbook. I also do not agree with the style of the book and since I used LaTeX over the summer, the pictures and the text look like they have just been thrown together. It just doesn’t look right.
Anyway, I hope this semester goes well.
I can’t believe they’re still using the Skeel book for CS314. It’s pretty awful and so is the class. Also the Skeel book uses Mathematica but we used MATLAB, which totally makes no sense. Hope your experience sucks less than mine did.
I already do not like the course.
First, the instructor seems to be picking up topics from weird places in the chapters without organization and I have had to fish out topics that he mentioned (at a very fast pace and at most one time in a different context) from the text.
The text is very badly written and almost uses no examples – makes weird calculations at times and it is definitely not clear how they made an approximation calculating an error when approximations were the source of the error.
I think I saw Skeele in LWSN once teaching some course and the students didn’t seem too interested in the lecture.
But it is a compulsory course – if the instructor continues on the same track of teaching without organization, I might sit at home and just read the textbook.
Yeah, I stopped going to class after a couple of weeks. It’s the only time I’ve ever done that for any class. That’s how bad my experience was. I’ve heard a couple times that Sameh is a good teacher for CS314, but I don’t know how often he teaches it (Sameh’s website indicates that he hasn’t taught it in a decade, but I know that’s not true). I haven’t heard anything good about the other professors though. Good luck with it if you stick it out for the semester :P