Day 7: A Week In.
Now that I am a week in, I can better judge the flow of courses and really start thinking about what courses I like and which ones I do not, but on a side note - Wednesdays are going to be my new personal hell. I hate development at this time after all of my actual classes, as it really makes my day sour to have to sit down and program when I really just want to soak in and sleep after learning so much. Besides that bit of venting, however, here is what I got out of the courses:
- MTH 217: I am going to be nicer to Pf.Ashley from now on, at least for awhile till I better understand him and his teaching style. I honestly am reminded of just how frustrating courses can be when I know more than I probably should and am bored to death of doing the basic linear algebra sequence time and time again, but what can I do? Michigan has no easy test-out system, and my major requires that I take LA in some shape or form. Chalk it up to problems with Michigan Math I guess. Today we covered proof techniques - in particular contradiction and induction. What startled me was that the theoretical "first induction proof" a student could have done at this point in time is one not involving the naturals but the odds! While I understand those two sets are easily made equivalent via the associated bijection, it simply bothers me that this particular proof came before another, simpler, one which revolved around the naturals. Normally I would not notice such a thing, as I quickly performed the needed transform due to how common PMI was in IB, but being in Office Hours with a teacher quickly reveals where people are if they do not get a concept. My new hypothesis about Ashley's lapses of memory is that, due to his other work in geometry and such, he simply does not use these techniques as directly as an undergrad has to in order to get anywhere. After seeing him write out a proof, I now think that he, like me in some ways, considers most of this a breeze, and hasn't figured out what students know and what they do not yet, a side-effect of many of the newer lecturers here, as they do not know their own flow nor how to modify their concepts to better help students understand what is happening. He also has not figured out a good way to retain user attention, making it hard for me to concentrate currently, as again my knowledge of the coursework gets in the way of my computation. I just shall hope that I get more out of each day in this class ( or perhaps get some sort of REU with Ashley? unsure ).
- MSE 220: Now this was a class. We finally are starting to cover crystallography, and man is it worthwhile. Having more math in that course brightens up my day, especially when it involves the random geometric stuff I had to memorize for competition math ( I didn't have to, buuuut it kinda happened that way ). Besides crystal packing factors and the relation between cell size and the atomic radius, we also explored how to calculated theoretical density for lattices, which was also really interesting to see how these models interact with real-life calculation. Besides the actual work, however, we also got told about the different things we will need to pay attention to to ensure we get full marks on the homework - a necessary evil, but I am unsure as to how Wynarski is grading us.
- MTH 316: This was a relatively interesting day. We finally covered the theorems which guarantee that, for open intervals, linear and non-linear first order IVPs have some form of solution. I met more of the person sitting beside me, who seems really cool, but otherwise more or less nothing to talk about here, as I know the content and think it is unnecessary to talk more about it.
- EECS280: Pointers. They Point To Data. They also were covered in 151, but who is counting? ( I am. I am. ) .
Anyways, tomorrow comes as a needed break and as a pretty stressful day. I'll be finalizing my solutions to MTH 217, completing MSE 220, and checking my solutions for MTH 316. While I am sure it will be alright, I am going to try to get as much done in the rest of the time I have today before I decide to end this and get some sleep.
- MTH 217: I am going to be nicer to Pf.Ashley from now on, at least for awhile till I better understand him and his teaching style. I honestly am reminded of just how frustrating courses can be when I know more than I probably should and am bored to death of doing the basic linear algebra sequence time and time again, but what can I do? Michigan has no easy test-out system, and my major requires that I take LA in some shape or form. Chalk it up to problems with Michigan Math I guess. Today we covered proof techniques - in particular contradiction and induction. What startled me was that the theoretical "first induction proof" a student could have done at this point in time is one not involving the naturals but the odds! While I understand those two sets are easily made equivalent via the associated bijection, it simply bothers me that this particular proof came before another, simpler, one which revolved around the naturals. Normally I would not notice such a thing, as I quickly performed the needed transform due to how common PMI was in IB, but being in Office Hours with a teacher quickly reveals where people are if they do not get a concept. My new hypothesis about Ashley's lapses of memory is that, due to his other work in geometry and such, he simply does not use these techniques as directly as an undergrad has to in order to get anywhere. After seeing him write out a proof, I now think that he, like me in some ways, considers most of this a breeze, and hasn't figured out what students know and what they do not yet, a side-effect of many of the newer lecturers here, as they do not know their own flow nor how to modify their concepts to better help students understand what is happening. He also has not figured out a good way to retain user attention, making it hard for me to concentrate currently, as again my knowledge of the coursework gets in the way of my computation. I just shall hope that I get more out of each day in this class ( or perhaps get some sort of REU with Ashley? unsure ).
- MSE 220: Now this was a class. We finally are starting to cover crystallography, and man is it worthwhile. Having more math in that course brightens up my day, especially when it involves the random geometric stuff I had to memorize for competition math ( I didn't have to, buuuut it kinda happened that way ). Besides crystal packing factors and the relation between cell size and the atomic radius, we also explored how to calculated theoretical density for lattices, which was also really interesting to see how these models interact with real-life calculation. Besides the actual work, however, we also got told about the different things we will need to pay attention to to ensure we get full marks on the homework - a necessary evil, but I am unsure as to how Wynarski is grading us.
- MTH 316: This was a relatively interesting day. We finally covered the theorems which guarantee that, for open intervals, linear and non-linear first order IVPs have some form of solution. I met more of the person sitting beside me, who seems really cool, but otherwise more or less nothing to talk about here, as I know the content and think it is unnecessary to talk more about it.
- EECS280: Pointers. They Point To Data. They also were covered in 151, but who is counting? ( I am. I am. ) .
Anyways, tomorrow comes as a needed break and as a pretty stressful day. I'll be finalizing my solutions to MTH 217, completing MSE 220, and checking my solutions for MTH 316. While I am sure it will be alright, I am going to try to get as much done in the rest of the time I have today before I decide to end this and get some sleep.
Comments
Post a Comment