Academic Wrap-Up: Past Classes

August 29th, 2010 • Academics, Wrapup

A past Blog Squad blogger, Phoebe Yu, had a great idea (which she got from another Blog Squad-er, Sam) to pass some judgement on the classes she’s taken each term. I loved reading these posts from Phoebe and Sam and, while it’s hardly the end of term, I figured I would take a moment to write a bit on all of the classes I have taken at UBC thus far. (The classes are listed in the order I’ve taken them.)

Math 200 – Calculus III
Iain Moyles
Summer 2010

Professor Moyles is currently working on his Master’s degree and, if I remember correctly, this was the first class he’s taught at UBC thus far. I thought that he did a great job- he has a natural knack for teaching and he made the lectures so interesting that, while it would be a dumb idea to skip even one lecture in a summer class, I actually enjoyed coming to lecture. He wrote our notes directly to pdf via a tablet PC and posted them online within a few hours of lecture. The notes were pretty good, but I felt that they followed the textbook too closely. He worked through a lot of examples with us but again, a lot of them were examples that were already worked through in the textbook. The final exam review he did in class was great, and he would always spend the time to give thorough answers to any questions people might have. The way that the class is structured, most of your mark is garnered from your best three out of the four midterms you have to write, and then the other 45% (or something) was from the final exam. I was an idiot and I threw the second midterm away by not studying, which is a bad, BAD idea since the midterms got progressively harder. In the end, however, I ended up getting one of the highest marks on the final exam since I busted my butt studying. Professor Moyles also held a drop-in final review session which was a massive help. There were around seven of us at any given time and we simply went over old final exams and worked through the harder problems together. If any of your professors ever offer this, take advantage of it! I cannot emphasize that enough because even if you are feeling prepared, it will show your profs that you are engaged in the material and a hard worker. This can make the difference between an A and an A+ (or a pass and a fail, if you find yourself in that situation).

Final grade: hugely satisfying because I really, really worked for it.

Computer Science 221 – Basic Algorithms and Data Structures
Kim Voll
Spring 2010

Kim is right up there with Kurt Eiselt as my favourite prof ever, so the class was a joy. I actually looked forward to the lectures, for the most part! That being said, by the end of the course if I had to hear the term “big-O” again, I probably would have punched the utterer in the mouth. This class provided an introduction to C++ in the sense that we were never taught it (not in the way that we were taught Java in CS111) but were expected to know it for the final. A lot of the information we learned was pretty practical, like which sorting algorithm is the fastest, how to tweak your code to be more efficient, and data structures, and quite a bit of it was theoretical like counting theory and combinatorics. The assignments were challenging at times but were a good opportunity to play around with the concepts and practice some C++. If I remember correctly, the final brought my grade down a little bit since I didn’t study very efficiently, but overall it was a good course. I’d recommend taking it with Kim if you can.

Final grade: I’m happy with it, though I wish I’d tried a bit harder for the final.

Computer Science 213 – Introduction to Computer Systems
Mike Feeley
Spring 2010

In a lot of ways, this class was an extension of CS121… and it wasn’t much easier, either, though it was more interesting. 213 covered topics such as hardware, operating systems, threads, assembly language, etc. I found it very interesting to learn about how computers actually work on such a down and dirty level, since so much of what we’d covered to this point was more high-level, theoretical concepts. I felt like the grading was pretty easy when I took this class, which was encouraging, but the downside was that I felt like it was a false sense of security since I didn’t feel really strong on the material. The assembly language took a bit of practice but after not too long, it came quite easily. The same cannot be said about  C though, in my opinion, and I can’t say I’ve fallen in love with it yet. However, the C programming is minimal and a bit of practice will get you competent enough to do well. The labs were pretty challenging and I will admit that I felt very lost a lot of the time. I actually ended up TAing for this course this past summer, and I noticed that my confusion was mirrored in a lot of the students. The class can be challenging for the first couple weeks since the material is pretty new, and then it’ll get a lot easier until the second half of the class, when it gets difficult all over again. Work hard and try to hunt down some really good external sources of information, and you’ll do really well.

Final grade: very good, even though I needed a refresher before I TA’d for the class!

Math 101 – Integral Calculus with Applications to Physical Science
John Griesmer
Spring 2010

This class was very lackluster for me, but there isn’t really a good excuse as to why my grade was lower than it should have been. I was dumb and missed a couple of homework assignments and threw away a couple of quizzes when I really shouldn’t have… all this, plus my lack of proactivity, added up to bite me in the butt. That being said, the material was quite easy and I found the class less challenging overall than Math 100/180. One thing, however, is that my friend Chris and I decided to take a final exam review put on by the math department, which was excellent. If the instructor for the review session had been my instructor for the entire term, I am sure that the class would have been much more fulfilling. Professor Griesmer was, again, a new professor and started out strong, but petered out a bit near the end (despite best intentions, I am sure).

Final grade: try going with Professor Gupta. I hear he’s great.

Physics 102 – Electricity, Light and Radiation
Frances Bates
Spring 2010

Apart from the first two weeks of class that skimmed over some very basic nuclear physics, the rest of the material was painfully boring. Painfully. Boring. I hated electricity in high school physics and I hate it still, so I think that my review on this class will be a bit biased. Moreover, I put less effort into this class than it deserved (since I found CS213 and 221 much more engaging) so the whole thing was quite lackluster overall. If you are pursuing physics, please do not be put off by how sleep-inducing first year physics might be. Fran Bates is a very good professor, though. We ended up being a bit ahead of the other sections, so we had some more time to review. Plus, her handouts are quite good but you will probably find them fairly useless if you don’t go to class to expand on the somewhat abstract material that is on them. Professor Bates is one of the few non-compsci profs I’ve had so far that do not simply regurgitate textbook material verbatim, so I recommend her for sure. I will add that 8am physics labs are inhumanly torturous if you are on a nocturnal schedule… one more reason to get a high GPA (so you can get into an afternoon lab, that is). I expanded a bit more on physics labs a bit below, under Physics 101 (since the format is identical for 101 and 102).

Final grade: eh… garbage in, garbage out.

Computer Science 121 – Models of Computation
Steve Wolfman
Winter 2009

This was a hard class. My feelings on it are that it’s sort of everything and the kitchen sink… everything that didn’t fit into another compsci class, I mean. I would consider this a survey course and we covered everything from mathematical proofs to formal logic, to basic circuitry and a very small amount of electrical engineering. See what I mean? It could get very frustrating at times because it felt like the labs were in no way connected to the lectures. The lab TAs were great, though. Professor Wolfman is a tough professor but, if you are a compsci student, you will appreciate being pushed a bit later on. (The introduction to mathematical proofs and formal logic carry on into other courses, too. Especially calculus and higher level compsci courses.) The final exam was open book, which I think might be something Professor Wolfman tends to do in his classes. Do not be lulled into a false sense of security, however: open book exams are often a lot more challenging. You should see the set of folders I made for the final… legendary. If I could do this class over again, I would probably do more practice questions and I would *definitely* have made better use of both the TA and professor office hours.

Final grade: a lot better than I expected, so I’m happy.

Computer Science 211 – Introduction to Software Development
Margaret Dulat
Winter 2009

Like another blogger has said elsewhere (I forget who- sorry!), this class is easier than its predecessor, CS111. The material covered is almost boringly easy, though it does teach you some good habits and style practices for coding. It also gives a (very small) taste of what it’s like to be a “real life coder.” The main component of a class is implementing a relatively large-scale project from scratch. Our assignment was to implement a photo viewing program, similar in concept to Picasa or Flickr. I cannot explain to you how satisfying and fun it was to build a program from the ground up, GUI included. I don’t remember much about the lectures (since near the end, I only went to lecture around 40% of the time). I did end up with a good grade, though, and received 107% on my photo viewer. The class also strengthened my Java skills from the volume of coding we did, so overall it was a pretty fun class.

Final grade: quite good, but it could have been better if I’d tried a bit harder on the final.

Math 180 – Differential Calculus with Physical Applications
Kurt Luoto
Winter 2009

Math 180 is first term calculus intended for students who have never taken high school calculus (beyond what paltry amount you may have been introduced to in Math 12). The high school I went to didn’t even offer a Calculus 12 class, so I couldn’t have taken it even if I’d wanted to (and at the time, I doubt I would have wanted to anyways). Anyhow, this class was a bit of a challenge for me for two reasons: 1) it had been four years since I had taken Math 12, and you’d be amazed at the quantity of information your mind will shove into the recycling bin, and 2) I had totally forgotten how to study math. The mistake that I made was to think that I could learn the material by attending the lectures and giving my textbook and in-depth read… and I don’t know how other people learn, but I think that it’s pretty safe to say that this is NOT how one will succeed in a math class. What I should have done (and if I’d been smart enough to ask for advice or follow the course outline, I would have known) would have been to do practice questions… LOTS of practice questions, on a daily basis. The daily basis part is important- it’ll keep the material fresh and make exam preparation 500% less stressful. Also, I wouldn’t have shied away from the difficult problems at the end of each chapter as these are often the questions that you’ll find closely mirrored on your midterms and finals. I did want to succeed so I hired a tutor in the beginning, but in my opinion, it wouldn’t have been necessary if I had simply done more practice questions. Professor Luoto meant well but he was a new professor, and had trouble keeping the class under control. Putting a bunch of students that have very little interest in math (as a lot of them were students from other faculties reluctantly taking it to satisfy their math requirement) in a room, learning something that they have no interest in, taught by a professor that was very kind-hearted but perhaps didn’t rule with an iron fist (as it were) is a recipe for a subpar calculus experience.

Final grade: if I could do it over again with what I’d learned, I imagine it would be at least 20% higher. However, considering the class average was 58% (!!!), I did very well indeed.

Physics 101 – Energy and Waves
Brian Turrell
Winter 2009

On the first day of class, I was awestruck at the sheer number of students! Personally, I started out very strong in this class because, after all, physics was what I was at UBC for in the first place. However, it soon became apparent that this class was the lowest on my list of interesting classes and my performance decreased accordingly. Professor Turrell might seem a bit intimidating while lecturing and I will admit that I have never been to his office hours, but I did email him a couple of times and he was very kind and helpful. My lab was, again, horribly early and the labs themselves are stressful as hell. You have to perform, notate and write about a lab all in the course of a couple of hours. Also, the marking can be very unclear if you are not giving a marking scheme (which my TA was awesome enough to provide). In lab, you are supposed to pair up with someone different each time, but no one really cares to check so my advice is that if you find someone very competent to pair up with, stick with them. One time, I paired up with a bit of a mouthy know-it-all who insisted her way was the right way… that is, until the final 20min when our TA told us that we would have to redo the whole experiment due to a mistake we had made earlier that she had (sans any sort of decorum) insisted was correct at the beginning of the lab. So I emphasize: find a good lab partner, and stick with them.

Final grade: there’s a reason I’m not a physics major.

Computer Science 111 – Introduction to Computation
Kurt Eiselt
Summer 2009

What can I say? This life literally (and I dislike (as in loathe) hyperbolic use of the word “literally”) changed everything for me… my hobbies, my interests and my career path all took a 180 after taking CS111. I had never been exposed to any kind of programming prior to taking this class and the thought of pursuing computer science had never crossed my mind (heck, I barely knew what computer science entailed). However, Kurt is an *awesome* teacher and the class was, while frustrating at the time, a lot of fun. Computer science requires a very particular type of problem solving and I found out that the balance of creativity and skill was exactly what I’d been looking for. Since I took this class in the summer and wanted to do well, it was a lot of work. My days were usually spent in class for a few hours, followed by anywhere from two to six hours of programming in the evening. I found it challenging, since it was all brand new to me, but also very rewarding. If you do take CS111 and find yourself feeling lost, or entrenched in that horrible sensation of not even knowing where to start, don’t despair… that feeling will go away quickly. I would (and do) absolutely recommend this course to anyone. Not only will you learn a hugely practical and useful skill that will kick a butt on your resume, Kurt is a very engaging lecturer and makes class a ton of fun. To this day I still remember the hilarious “peanut butter sandwich” demonstration he did on the first day… :)

Final grade: a very satisfying (and high) A+

Biology 111 – Introduction to Modern Biology
Greg Bole
Summer 2009

Biology 111 is a class intended for people who didn’t take Biology 12- and because, when I was in high school, I didn’t plan to go into the sciences (and was a bit fed up with classes in general) I never took Bio12. This was a very introductory survey course. The topics we covered included DNA, evolution and viruses to the best of my recollection, though my memory is a bit foggy since it’s been awhile. I do remember that we didn’t go into much depth, but what we did learn was pretty practical knowledge. Because it was a summer course, there was a lot of reading… or perhaps it just seemed that way at the time since it was one of my first classes at UBC! The exams were divided into (approximately) one third multiple choice, one third short answer and one or two longer, essay questions. Overall, a pretty good class if you’d like an easy grade-booster course that you can sandbag, but remember that if you have Biology 12, you aren’t permitted to take the class.

Final grade: an easy A considering I put in 5% of the effort I did for CS111.

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