Midterms, Music and Computer Love

October 8th, 2010 • Academics, Student Life, Thoughts

I hope that everyone is managing to survive the inevitable onslaught both of midterms and rain- neither of which seem to stop until Christmas time! (Well… I suppose it’s fair to say that the rain continues right through to June, but I’m not complaining. Rain is my favourite.) My week, academic-wise, has consisted of a a rather hefty handful of assignments and two midterms- one for Math 223 (Honours Linear Algebra) and one for CS312 (Functional & Logic Programming). I was strangely calm for each of them… either I’m getting the hang of this midterm thing or my brain has reverted to some kind of Ritalin-like stupor as a defense mechanism. The CS312 midterm was actually a lot of fun, though in my experience, Professor Eiselt’s midterms are usually strangely delightful to do. Really. Last night at 2am, however, I did bolt up in bed thinking of some dumb mistake I made on the first question… argh! Perhaps if I send my TA $20 they’ll have a temporary moment of dyslexia and not even notice the error… I did draw a robot on the front page, so who knows.

A friend of mine actually had a brilliant idea that I strongly, strongly suggest any student should try- earplugs during exams! My Math 223 exam was marred by someone who, clearly oblivious to the concept of Kleenex, emitted a horribly wet, viscous sniffle every two seconds. So distracting. After lamenting about this to my friend, he was sweet enough to bring me a pair of obnoxiously orange, blessedly sound-cancelling earplugs for our CS312 midterm. Man, does it make a difference! So much easier to focus without listening to all of the various bodily noises that get amplified in a quiet room. Hilariously, though, the student beside me during the 312 midterm insisted on violently cracking  his neck every five minutes, so I kept seeing him flail his head around periodically. As far as seat mates go, I just can’t win!

Anyways, earplugs. Try it.

Something equally auricular that I’d like to recommend is an amazing site: Stereomood. They describe themselves as “free emotional internet radio”. In other words, they have thousands of songs culled from blogs, websites and music sites like Pitchfork- everything from Radiohead to Royksopp to the Beatles to stuff you’ve never heard of- organized by the listeners into playlists suited to a particular mood or emotion. My favourites so far are the “Reading” playlist, and the “Melancholy” one really seems to fit autumn well (a little dark and morose but still beautiful). I have Stereomood on anytime I’m home and it’s great for studying, as well as discovering new music to fill up your iPhone.

Another thing I want to say briefly is…. I love my faculty. Seriously. Computer Science is full of the greatest people. I’ve been staying on campus from 8:30am to 10pm lately, working away in the labs after class since if I go home, I inevitably get nothing accomplished. Nine times out of ten, I’m not the only one tapping away on a computer into the wee hours of the night, and all nine of those nine times, the people also staying are great. It’s so awesome to be able to strike up a conversation with almost anyone and know that you share the same interests, the same love for computing… it’s great. The friends I’ve made at UBC so far are wonderful, deeply intelligent people and I feel really lucky to be able to surround myself with people that love what I love as much as I love it.

Plus, the other day when I was studying with a couple friends in the ICICS Reading Room, Bernice, the lovely lady of the library, let us know that there were free boxed lunches downstairs leftover from a conference earlier. We trooped down and grabbed one each, and lo and behold- gourmet sandwiches! They were soooo good and I attribute any success on my exam to the sugar boost that I got from the cute little Rice Krispie square included alongside the sandwich. Again- compsci rocks.

So who invented this math thing, anyways.

September 30th, 2010 • Academics, Student Life, Thoughts

I’m currently sitting in ICICS, both dreading my meeting with my honors math prof and wishing time would hurry up so I could get it over with. I have another assignment due tomorrow for this class… these assignments, which are worth a little over 1% of our final grade, are composed entirely of proving things and they’ve been taking me a minimum of 10 hours to complete (at the exclusion of my other classes). I’m really getting fed up with it, quite honestly. What’s more is that on my second assignment, which I worked on for a total of twelve hours and spent an hour of one-on-one time with the prof going over my answers, I got a pass. And by pass, I mean like… a bare pass. In the grand scheme of things, this is at most 0.5% off of my final grade. Not a big deal, right? No… but it feels like a giant slap in the face for something that I (a) worked damn hard on and (b) thought I had in the bag.

So, needless to say, I’m grouchy. And I’m not all that motivated to work on this assignment that’s due tomorrow.

Also, for the past four months, I’ve been staying out in Burnaby, which involves a total of three hours of transit on any given day. Transit that is congested, busy and usually involves having someone’s backpack centimeters away from your cheek the whole time. I do have a place in Kitsilano that I rent, but my roommates have been somewhat unsavory. However, just yesterday I got great news… my least favourite roommate (who watches TV in the kitchen for six hours a night, accompanied by talking and singing to himself) is moving out! I was planning on heading back into my place again this weekend, anyways, but this just makes it so much sweeter. Finally I can study without hearing Sex and the City at volume 20, punctuated by his shrill giggles. Yesssss. The best part is, now it takes only 20 minutes to get to school! Fantastic.

On a slightly depressing note, I hope that everyone is keeping in mind that midterms are soon… and often sooner than you expect. Last year, I got caught off guard by them, thinking that “a whole week” was “more than enough time” to study. Well… it’s usually not. Not if you don’t want to shove everything in your short-term memory and pray for the best the night before. So, my advice to first years and nth years alike… start now! The best and most consistent exam marks come from a constant effort at revisions from day one.

EDITED TO ADD: So I talked to my math teacher and it was an error with Vista… I ended up getting a high A. :) Yahoo! Mood++

End of Summer Anxieties

September 3rd, 2010 • Academics, Student Life, Thoughts

The fourth day of September- I’d like to echo those around me by saying “I can’t believe summer went so quickly!” but, honestly, it hasn’t seemed unnaturally fast to me. In fact, my previous batch of spring finals seems like a million years ago, and I’m not really relishing the approach of that time of the year again. What a pessimistic thought, huh? The beginning of the school year is always accompanied by such a specific smell in the air. It reminds me of buying school supplies at Staples with my mom when I was in elementary school. That was one of my favourite days of the year.

I was on the B-line the other day going to the gym, and I found myself amongst a gaggle of first years… at least, I would assume that they are new students. Their looks of slight bemusement and thinly veiled excitement at the fact that they had just completed their first trip to Save-On on their own gave them away. (Their plastic bags were replete with laundry detergent, cereal and Brita filters.) Some days, I sort of wish that I had gone through the whole experience of coming to UBC straight out of high school to attend Science One, live in res and go through the typical anxieties and discoveries that come along with being on your own for the first time. (Who knew it was so hard to write a cheque or accomplish a culinary feat greater than Kraft Dinner?) In fact, that was my original plan. I remember quite clearly lying on the living room floor, thumbing through the UBC viewbook and ogling the pictures of light streaming through the stained glass windows in the Harry Potter room.

Despite all this, I still have mixed feelings about school starting in a few days. My courseload is scaring the pants off of me… the fact that I have to take Math 223 (honors linear algebra) alone has been giving me nightmares for real. I keep reading past course outlines that say that Math 223 is “significantly harder, faster and more theoretical” than its non-honors counterpart, 221. Great… Another downside is that only two out of my five classes are computer science classes. To inject at least a modicum of happiness, Cogs 200 should be interesting and I just pray that it’s a little less challenging than my other ones. (I registered in it as my “easy” class for the term, since I simply can’t justify taking Basketweaving 101 or whatever to sandbag.)

Sometimes I seriously wonder why I’m even bothering with honors since all I hear is that it’s too challenging, or there’s no point to it since it doesn’t matter for grad school, or that the only thing you get in return for herculean levels of stress is a meaningless accolade on your resume. But since I’m stuck at UBC for four years in total anyways due to a stupid, bureaucratic hitch that resulted from me being a transfer student, I may as well go the extra mile while I’m here. And I sort of feel like I’d be cheating myself if I didn’t do it, simply because I know I’m capable and to do anything less would be working at a level lower than my full potential. I mean, that’s what I’d like to think. Math 223 could very well prove me differently… haha… ha… sigh.

Anyways. I guess that this is a bit of a morose post and I think that the anticipation surrounding the whole back to school thing is probably worse than getting back into the swing of things. I’m loving the opportunity to read the excitement from my fellow UBC bloggers- especially those who are new to UBC and seeing everything for the first time.

Enjoy your final few days of summer, everyone!