Yeah, so… classes have been inte

You know, it’s 1 AM… this homework can wait until tomorrow, as can writing a real journal entry.
*goes to sleep*

So I’ve now been to every class. Yesterday, I was registered for 70 units (equivalent of 23.3 credit hours; more than the allowable) due to my being admitted into photo history from the waitlist. I intended to drop alternative photo processes for it. However, I went to the class, and there’s only 7 people in it, and it seems amazing… so I decided to drop photo history instead. I’ll take it next semester or something. I also switched sections of analysis (21-355) because the professor asked people to if possible. Relatedly, if anyone’s interested in my now finalized schedule, see here (the class script that tells you where I am in my day has also been updated).

Thoughts on classes…

Alternative photo processes (62-265) is amazing… definetly worth getting up at 7:30 for. It’s a shame that Emily (my photo professor last semester) left CMU (to sail tall ships in California), because she would have co-taught this class. That said, I’m really excited about this. We’re doing 3 different types of printing (none standard) and experimenting with different photo techniques and materials and camera formats. Should be amazingly fun, and the $100 lab fee (which includes all supplies) is amazingly low. Oh yeah, and the teacher seems really good too. Yay!

Numerical methods (21-369) seems like a good course. I’ll need to learn Matlab for it and such, but meh… no big deal. The first day of class was review for me… things about how computers handle floats and rounding/truncation errors and such. Doesn’t seem like it’ll be too much work.

Principles of real analysis I (21-355) is dooooom. The professor seems really good and really nice though… I emailed him saying my book hadn’t arrived yet (the only one that hasn’t, and it’s ironically the only one I need right now), and he said he’d photocopy the necessary stuff for me until it does. Amazing. The material itself seems like it’ll be difficult but not undoable… definetly one of my more difficult classes this semester.

Computer graphics (15-462) also seems good… however, I am very afraid of the fact that it will require massive amounts of matrix/linear algebra (the fact that it’s all in C++ doesn’t concern me) given that I don’t remember anything from matrix. Meh. I should recall it fairly fast though. The class seems like it’ll be a ton of work (my most work-intensive class this semester), but it also seems like one of my most fun. Yay for openGL!

Algorithm design and analysis (15-451) looks like it’ll be excellent. The Blums are teaching it (Manuel and his son), so I mean, you can’t really go wrong. This is probably my hardest class this semester, especially given there’s no collaboration on the written homeworks, but that’s actually good, because it means I’ll really truly learn the material. The oral homeworks are funny (collaborate with two others, then present your answers to the TAs/professors), but seem like a very good idea. First day was easy… he went over the different multiplication algorithms, leading us from the naive O(2^n) method to the traditional O(n^2) method to the better O(n^(log_2^3)). Nothing I haven’t seen before, but nice to see again.

Color photography and digital output (15-381) seems exactly like what I expected… not very much Photoshop work (just basic touching up) and a ton of focus on the taking of the photographs… using lighting and time to change hues and tones in the picture. Excellent. The professor seems really good too. Whee!

So yeah, that’s it classwise. I dunno… I kinda feel like I haven’t gotten as much out of the past 2 years as I should have. I don’t remember half the things I learned (although they do tend to come back fairly quickly when I need them, with only a little bit of review), and I don’t feel like I’ll be adequitely prepared for a job after I graduate. I mean, I guess that’s somewhat crap, because I did fine this summer when thrown into a problem that I had never seen before, but still. I dunno.

Last night was lots of fun. Played some ITG with Greg, then pulled him over to Fairfax to look at the place. Then we got caught up in watching Whose Line with everyone else, and then we all played Loaded Questions. Was fun, but it was probably a relatively bad idea since I didn’t get to bed until around 2. Was worth it though… yay for all living by each other! And yay for Mars’ yummy chocolate cupcakes!

Played Student Wars with Ben today. He’s pointing out things that could potentially break the game, and is going to try to build a deck that does so. I’m revising the rules to compensate. Whee. If you’re interested, swccg.alanv.org.

Ben tortures his alarm clock with his variac… whee

So yeah, I have homework, but I can’t do it until my analysis book comes, so meh. I guess in the meantime I’ll enjoy my “homework free” evening and work on Student Wars before going to bed (early; 8:30 class tomorrow).